Dimension Travellers: Hopping the Void
by DetectiveSky612
Summary: *COMPLETE* When a half-dragon from a thousand years in the future gets swept into a whirlwind of transdimensional adventure, he meets a ghost from his past and sees if the grass is really greener on the other side... (Full crossover: OC/WoF/L:D/DW/KJ/LoZ) Semi-SI. Read the entirety of "Dragonheart" up to this point on Wattpad - by DetectiveSky612/Jack Grayson, the Last Dragonheart.
1. Prologue

So I was sitting at my laptop, typing into my Notes app like I'm often wont to do, when I heard a crash and a familiar voice - which grated against my ears - from the rear of my house. I leaned out and looked into the hallway. Nothing. Until the same voice said:

"Well... That was certainly... effective..."

At that point, my curiosity had peaked enough to check out what the heck was going on. I turned and looked into the kitchen, and saw a figure on one knee, looking around, getting his bearings. When he looked at me, I saw the same greenish-brown eyes, the same uncontrollable brown hair, and the same puzzled expression that my face donned. He was even wearing the same clothes. Really, the only things that were different were the facts that he had a decidedly plain-looking longsword on his back and a crystal necklace, when I couldn't remember owning either of those things. He looked at me, and we made eye contact.

"What?" He said.

"Who are you?" I replied.

"I'm Jack."

"I'm Jack."

"No, I'M Jack."

"We're both named Jack, okay?"

The copy of me nodded. "It seems we're probably copies from two parallel universes. If that's so... What's your origin point?"

"Toronto, Ontario, March 2016."

"Malinovka, Steelvale, November 2750-ish."

"What's with the sword and the necklace?"

"Defending myself and keeping myself alive."

"Wait... I know you, I think... Dragonheart?"

"The crystal? What about it?"

"No, the book series. That I wrote."

"I think I know where you're going with this..."

We both said it at the same time. "That was later fused with my RPG (Which really wasn't as great as I'd hoped) and so extended the universe, now that you're/I'm here, to 2750 AD, after simultaneously ending it in..." I didn't want to finish. "June 2016." I continued alone. "I hope THAT outcome doesn't come..."

The other me muttered something in Latin, and shook his head. "That outcome doesn't come to this universe."

I sighed in relief. At least my world won't crumble around me. "If you're from what I'll call Dragonheart World, 750 years in the future, how did you get here?"

"A rift opened up beneath my feet in my Garage. When I flew out, I was here."

"Why, though? What could possibly be destabilizing the multiverse this much?"

"I don't know... but I'm stuck here for now."

I thought about what I should do now. I've never exactly had a copy of myself at my house, now, have I?

"Don't worry, we're not that different. You don't need to get me anything." My duplicate said, sensing my indecision.

"What's with the necklace? Last time I read about you, the crystal was set into Naga." I said, nodding to the sword on my duplicate's back.

"It's a very long story involving tanks, my sword, four other guys, three of which are descendants of my m8s, a clock tower, two parallel worlds, one of which is a parallel world of a parallel world, and an OC lord. Remind me to tell it to you sometime."

"I will."

A strange purple portal opened beneath my duplicate's feet. He started falling, grabbing the ledge made by the edge of the portal.

"Well? Do you want to come explore the multiverse with me?" he said, having to shout to keep his voice above the roaring wind created by the portal.

"No... Besides, who would chronicle your adventures if I did?"

The Dragonheart smiled. "I'll keep you posted. Until next time!" Then, he let go, disappearing into the portal, and out of my life.


	2. Pyrrhia, Part 1

Dragonheart Jack fell through the terminal space he had discovered. The swirling purple fog that made up the edges blew past him. Air flew past him, so Jack changed to his dragon form. He felt the wind under his wings, and did a few corkscrews. That was when he heard it. It was a screaming noise, like the Starclimber's engines pushed too far... Then, a square, black shape overtook him. Jack nearly passed out when he saw: It was an almost exact replica of the Starclimber, the sole difference being the main cannons. He angled towards the hatch in the back of the ship, changed to his human form, and knocked.

-/|\\-

Jack sat in the cockpit of the Starclimber, monitoring his current time and universe, trying to calculate the best time to drop out into. His blue hoodie lay on the back of the pilot's chair, one sleeve hanging off of the edge. His BatCat shirt and jeans from home did nothing to comfort him, especially in a bit of unmapped terminal space so far from home. The Time Rotor behind the pilot's chair rose and fell, and made its wheezy grinding noise like it always did. The familiar sound calmed Jack's nerves, getting him to focus. Suddenly, there was a knock at the hatch in the back. Jack whirled towards it, scared. Nothing ever did that, especially not in the Time Vortex. The knock happened again. Knock, knock, knock, knock. Four knocks. It was probably something bad and reality-breaking. VERY reality-breaking. Jack's unicorn horn lit up on his forehead a bright blue, and the hatch started to slowly grind open. It wasn't used to opening in these turbulent conditions. Jack felt a migraine coming on, and he cringed. His horn started flashing a greenish teal for split seconds, and the hatch finally ground open. A humanoid figure clambered in, and the hatch's Vortex procedure took over and shut the ship's interior off from the Vortex. The intruder sat on the floor for a few moments, catching his breath, then looked around. Jack and the intruder locked eyes, and the intruder spoke first.

"Judging by the fact that you're half unicorn, own a big spaceship, and are wearing a sword, you must be Jack."

"How did you know?"

"Just trust. I'm more or less from your future."

"Oh really? Prove it."

"You're fairly lonely, wandering around universes like this, you wonder whether your companions will ever return to you, and you have the nagging suspicion that," the intruder said, rubbing his crystal necklace, "Dragons are better than unicorns."

"Dayuuum! How'd you do that?"

"You're flying - Well, I wouldn't say flying, more like acting as the pilot while this thing goes out of control - a time machine. Take a guess. I'm Jack, by the way."

"You're crazy, you know that?"

"Slightly. But yes."

Jack turned back to the controls and started to check what the best course of action was when an indicator light came on. Beside it was the label "Alarm - Time Rotor". The other Jack walked over and looked over Jack's shoulder, the necklace swinging slightly and distracting Jack. Other Jack pointed to the alarm.

"Do you know what that's for?"

"No," Jack replied, irritated. He swatted at the necklace, trying to push Other Jack away.

"I'll poke around the Time Rotor, maybe try to fix whatever's wrong. Do you have a sonic screwdriver or anything?" Other Jack asked.

"All of Hyrule, Sinnoh, and Earth, and you expect me to have a SONIC SCREWDRIVER?" Jack asked, incredulous. "It's in the small tin lockery thing."

"Thanks."

Other Jack started sonicing the Time Rotor, trying to diagnose the problem, while Jack tried to keep the ship under control. The Time Rotor stopped making its usual wheezy grinding noise and started to become intermittent and sounded like it was struggling.

"What are you doing back there? It isn't making anything any better!" Jack shouted, trying harder and harder to keep the ship in the Time Vortex.

"I think I've found the problem... The Time Rotor is having its power drained by some outside influence! We'll have to land to find out what!" Other Jack said, closing the access panel he was working in. The ship was rocked by a sudden turbulence, and Other Jack threw the Time Drive lever. A vast land stretched out beneath the Starclimber, covered in rainforest, marsh and grassland, while the continent itself stretched out further than the eye could see. A flying creature whizzed past, nearly hitting the Starclimber head-on. The ship dove, nearly hitting the ground, and it came to rest on the edge of the plain. Mountains stretched off to the left, and a great sea could be seen in the distance. Other Jack took this moment to speak up.

"I think it's worth mentioning that I met another copy of us right before I met you. He talked about me like he knew every single facet of me, and that I was a character in a book. Considering I more or less think the same thing about you, it's highly likely that we're both fictional. If so, then our universes have mashed irreparably."

"That's not good... I won't be able to get your semi-irritating self out of my hair."

"I should probably have asked this earlier, but what's your point of origin in Earth's history?"

"Toronto, Ontario, 2013-ish. I've been wandering for too long to remember exactly when. What's yours?"

"Malinovka, Steelvale, 2750-ish. Ever since humanity's fall from greatness, I've stopped keeping exact track."

Dragonheart Jack opened the back hatch of the Starclimber and looked around outside the ship. He stared into the sky, and watched as the black shape that nearly hit them flew off into the distance. "What do you think that was?"

"I don't know," Starclimber Jack answered, "But it looked like he was carrying something."

Both Jacks scanned the area around them, and decided to look for the nearest city. Starclimber Jack pulled some hidden switch, and the ship, through some combination of magic, servomotors, and dimensionally transcendentalness, was converted into an M4A3E8 Sherman medium tank. Starclimber Jack tried to sell the idea to Dragonheart Jack, but Dragonheart Jack just looked unimpressed. Both Jacks climbed in, and Starclimber Jack set the landship's course towards the mountains.

The next morning, the Sherman rolled into view of a giant palace, built into the mountainside. Dragonheart Jack looked for any sort of shelter they could leave the tank in, and directed the tank to the base of the nearest cliff. They were nearly there when a gargantuan red dragon landed and blocked their way. Its body was long and thin, and it had a batlike pair of wings between its fore and hind legs, roughly where its shoulders would be. A pair of menacing-looking horns sat on its head, and is teeth were bared threateningly. It growled, and Starclimber Jack heard Dragonheart Jack switch from both Jacks' standard English to a guttural, hissy language. The red dragon looked surprised for a moment, then growled again. Dragonheart Jack responded with an equally alien-sounding reply, and the dragon picked up the tank and flew towards the castle.

"What the hell did you say?!" Starclimber Jack shouted.

"I just told him that we were looking for somewhere to stay. I also asked if he had seen an old friend of mine. Do you think I ticked him off?"

"We're being carried off, more or less helpless. What do you think?"

"Should I ask him where we're going?"

"I repeat: What do you think?"

Dragonheart Jack yelled at the dragon, and the dragon chose not to reply. Starclimber Jack felt dread rising in his heart. Dragonheart Jack had just gotten them in an unfavourable position in a dragon castle.


	3. Pyrrhia, Part 2

Cloud walked through the halls of the palace. The two scavengers Falcon had brought to Scarlet's palace were not only identical, but one of them was as intelligent as any Skywing... or any dragon in Pyrrhia, for that matter. He walked into the throne room to see Queen Scarlet on her throne.

"Your Majesty, we've found a pair of scavengers right outside the palace. They were in a steel box, with a tube sticking out of it. We've taken them to the dungeons, but one of the scavengers appears to be intelligent. What should we do?"

Scarlet leaned forwards, her gold chainmail shirt clinking. "Intelligent, you say? Put the smart one into the arena. Keep the other one in the dungeon. I've sent a scout to try and find an animus-touched artifact. Moorhen's forces report seeing strange things happening to dragons who approach a specific part of the swamp. Nausea, insomnia... It must be an animus artifact. I'm going to test this artifact on the scavenger."

"Yes, Your Majesty. A brilliant idea. When should the scavenger start in the arena?"

"Put it in when Peril's done with the death row. Its first match should be with something easy... a Seawing, perhaps?"

"Of course, Your Majesty. As you wish." Cloud bowed and left the throne room. He found one of the recruits, and carried out Scarlet's orders.

-\|/-

Dragonheart Jack sat in the prison, his knees up against his chest. He had been in his birdcage-like prison for a week, separated from Starclimber Jack, and almost ignored except for a single dragon brought in a few days ago. Like Jack, Torrent had a magical feeling about him, stemming from a pendant around his neck.

-/|\\-

"Watch it!" He had growled to the red dragon, a soldier, who had pushed him into the cell. Jack had looked up at the twilight-blue dragon, and stood up and walked to the bars of his cell. The new arrival had webbed talons, and a flatter tail. He looked as though he was built for aquatic life.

"Hey," Jack had said, "Over here." The blue dragon looked around, to the other side of the cellhouse. His eyes skimmed right over Jack.

"Up here!" Jack had said, waving his arms.

The blue dragon had looked at Jack, then cocked his head to one side, confused. "You're a scavenger?"

"What does it look like?" Jack had retorted, slightly offended.

"You're a scavenger. A talking scavenger." The blue dragon had said, amazed. "Now I've seen it all."

Silence had permeated the cellhouse, and the human and dragon had stared at each other. The dragon had broken the silence first.

"What's your name?"

"Jack. Yours?"

"Torrent. You can talk?"

"If by that, you mean, 'learn how to speak Draconic and then successfully overcome size-based pitch differences', then yes. Do you know where we are?"

"Global or local?"

"Both."

"We're in Skywing Queen Scarlet's dungeons. The dungeons are in the palace, in the northwest corner of the Sky Kingdom of Pyrrhia."

"Great... What are you in here for?"

"Prisoner of war. The Sandwing Tribe was in the middle of a civil war, and the three sides' alliances made it a world war."

"Great... another World War One. Don't worry if you don't know what that means, you don't really need to know."

-\|/-

That was three days ago. Now, Jack and Torrent, although they were friends, were silent - There was nothing to talk about. Every conversation topic had been exhausted - except one.

"Where'd you get your pendant?" Jack asked.

"I've had it my whole life. I've never taken it off. If I did, I'd probably die from the string of bad luck that would follow. Where'd you get yours?"

"It's crystallized magic on a hand-forged chain. How I got it is a story for another time. Let's just say I've survived a lot because of this."

A red dragon - presumably a Skywing soldier - walked into the cellhouse, and two more Skywings unlocked the cages of the two prisoners. The first Skywing escorted Torrent to an antechamber outside of a gladiator-style arena, where he was instructed to wait until the portcullis on the other side opened. Jack was taken to a completely different antechamber, displaying every type of martial weapon available. The were swords, spears, and more, all on various racks. Jack was told to arm himself, as he'd be entering this fight alone. Jack felt anxiety and dread build up in his stomach. He was going into a gladiator battle, alone. Possibly - no, make that likely - against a dragon. He scanned the room for weapons he could actually use. He found Naga propped up against a rack, like any other sword. He reclaimed his weapon, and found a second sword next to it. It was shiny steel, like Jack's own sword, yet it was of a completely different design. Jack took the new sword, and tested its weight. He liked it. He decided to wield it in battle. He stepped towards the portcullis, and it ground open. The arena floor was covered in sand, and there were patches wet with blood. The spectator seats were filled with roaring Skywings, and Torrent stood in the centre, a mad glint in his eye. He turned to Jack, and grinned crazily.

"So you're my next adversary? You're just a scavenger. How could this be any easier?"

Jack was shocked. Torrent didn't even remember him. If this was bipolarism, it hadn't come up during their conversations.

But this wasn't the time or the place for thinking. Jack hefted his sword, pointing it towards Torrent. The necklace swung, and Jack knew that this was a situation of kill-or-be-killed. He decided to use his size to his advantage, and sprinted towards Torrent. At the last moment, he jumped, and swung his sword at Torrent's neck. Torrent flailed, trying to get at Jack, and the sword glanced off of Torrent's scales. The blade continued, and ended up severing Torrent's talisman cord. Torrent gasped, and looked back at Jack. He started to glow a bright white, and he looked as if his body was unsure to be what it was, or something smaller. Ripples went down the Seawing's back, and he faded to something about Jack's size. When the glow stopped, Torrent was a regular human - identical to Jack. Starclimber Jack looked dazed for a second.

"What the hell happened?!" he said. "And why am I... a scavenger?"

The human that was Torrent then proceeded to pass out onto the arena floor.


	4. Pyrrhia, Part 3

Back in the birdcage, Jack examined the pouch. He wanted to get a closer look at it, and smuggling it out of the arena was easy. Easy, as in "It's just a scavenger, what could possibly go wrong?" easy. Jack held the pouch up. It was roughly large enough to hold Jack's head, and it felt lightweight. Jack found a drawstring closing system on the opening, and released the clasp holding the pouch shut. He looked inside, and found a simple piece of parchment. On it was written, in Draconic, every single detail about Torrent.

(IRL Jack's annotation: The amount of information on the parchment is too much for me to remember and jot down all at once, so I'll sum it up now. The parchment says: "Anything that wears this scroll in a necklace-charm form will have the following occur to them:

\- They shall become a blue Seawing named Torrent.

\- They shall not remember anything that happened before this magic came into effect.

\- They shall think they are at the Skywing Palace as a prisoner-of-war.

\- They shall not want to take off this necklace for fear of their life."

Other than these four main points, the parchment outlines Torrent's personality and memories. The rest isn't very important to the function of the magic, though. Although, leaving it out is like having a D&D character without a backstory.)

Dragonheart Jack was floored. Torrent technically didn't even exist, and was only words on paper. This warranted further explanation.

A Skywing soldier walked in, and saw Jack in his birdcage with the pouch.

"'Ere it is," the soldier said, and opened the cage. "Just give me the pouch, and we can forget this whole thing ever happened."

Jack scanned the scroll one more time, flipped it over and scanned the mostly-blank space on the back, then rolled it up and put it back into the pouch. He handed the pouch over to the Skywing, who ruffled his hair semi-affectionately, semi-derisively.

"There's a good scavenger!" The Skywing said, taking the pouch and leaving. A few hours later, Torrent was escorted back in, and the two were locked in their respective holding cells. Moonlight filtered in from the door to the cell block, and Jack could see Torrent with a glum expression on his face.

"What's wrong?" Jack asked.

"It's just... I'm sorry how I treated you earlier. I just wasn't myself."

"No harm done. You don't have anything to apologize for. Do you still have that pouch?"

"Yeah..."

"Take it off."

"What? No! I don't want some seven-years' bad luck!"

"Just do it. Watch what happens."

"Three moons... Fine, fine. I'll do it."

Torrent reached his forelegs behind his neck, where the pendant's knot was, and untied it. The pouch dropped to the floor. The same effect happened in the cell that happened in the arena, and Torrent soon returned to being Starclimber Jack.

"Three moons! What just happened to me?"

"You've returned to being yourself. See, that pendant is magical. It corrupts your identity, and replaces yourself with fiction. The you that was Torrent is still lingering around in your head. It'll probably clear up with time, and you'll remember your real past instead of the backstory cooked up by whoever did this. You can keep Torrent as a nickname, though. If you plan on keeping the pouch, I'll have to edit what the talisman says. Otherwise, Torrent, try to explore what you can do in this state, with reduced size. You might find," Jack nodded to the gap in between the cell bars, "it works to your advantage."

Torrent examined himself, and tried to squeeze through the bars. When he succeeded, he reentered the prison, and examined Jack's position in relation to his own. The former Seawing looked up to Jack.

"When I escape, I'm bringing you with me," Torrent said. He put the pendant back on, and reverted to his Seawing form. He looked disoriented for a second, and then calmed down. He turned to Jack.

"Well? Did anything happen? Wait, no, it's not off yet..."

"No! No. It's fine. You don't need to take it off. To sum up what I learned, your personality right now is on that pendant, and if I can have the pendant for a bit, along with some writing tools, then I can change who you are, for better or for worse."

"You can do that?"

"Yes. For example, I can make sure there aren't any memory gaps like the one you had just now. And now that I know for sure who you really are, I can help you remember your true self."

"But... I'm Torrent. My true self is right here."

"Yes, your true self is right there. It's in that necklace you wear, day and night."

"Can't we just leave this until tomorrow?"

"Fine... but we should try to escape soon."

"Deal."


	5. Pyrrhia, Part 4

(IRL Jack's annotation: For anyone reading this who has read the Wings of Fire series and has a quarrel about my use of Scarlet's dungeons, yes, I know that Scarlet's dungeons are above the arena. That's what Scarlet was referring to when she said "Death Row". The regular dungeons - that is, dungeons that aren't for dragons condemned to die - are located in a semi-subterranean area beneath the palace.)

The next day, Jack was forced into the arena again. This time, he was up against a bright red Skywing, who had armour on his head, torso, legs, and tail, and had chainmail by his wing joints. The match was to the first blood drawn. The Skywing looked to Jack, and sniggered.

"So this is my next foe? A single scavenger?" He sighed. "Just how weak do they think I am?"

Jack drew his sword, and got into the same fighting stance as before. There's armour on his wings, head, body, tail, legs... Jeez! Where CAN I hit this guy? The Skywing lunged, and Jack dodged the Skywing's talons as they swiped to ravage his body. Jack ran around the arena, facing an impossible situation. I can always... No. Not with this crowd. They'd probably think I'm some demon. As Jack dodged more and more attacks and failed to get through the dragon's armour more and more often, he tired more and more. Eventually, he found himself backed up against a wall by the Skywing, his armoured, fire-breathing, deadly form looming over Jack. Jack closed his eyes, took a deep breath... It looks like I've got no other choice... and changed.

He felt the world around him change in relative scale, and he felt his wings brush up against the walls of the arena. His horns sprouted from his scalp, and he felt his tail curl around his legs. He heard the crowd around him fall silent, and he took a deep breath. He opened his eyes. Every dragon in the arena was staring at him. The Skywing, once looming over him like a storm cloud over a city, was now only a head or so taller.

"What in Pyrrhia are you?" the armoured Skywing asked.

Jack's response was simple, yet concise. "Your worst nightmare."

Jack lunged for the Skywing, and his horns hit armour. He felt the metal dent beneath the full impact force. He swiped both his talons to one side, successfully ripping off the Skywing's chestplate. Jack did a full 360, sweeping his tail spike across the dragon's chest. A great gash appeared on the dragon's chest. The crowd started cheering. The match was over.

The dragon in charge of the arena - Jack could only assume it was Skywing Queen Scarlet - stood up and addressed the crowd of dragons.

"This scavenger has given all of us a great surprise. Would you, my dutiful and loyal subjects, like to see what's next?"

The crowd roared. Jack could only guess approval. A portcullis opened, and a Seawing stepped out. Jack swallowed nervously. Although he had beaten Torrent once, he'd probably not be able to best him again. Especially if he wanted to keep his identity as a dragon hidden for now.

"This next match is to the death. Whichever dragon wins will be granted freedom."

Jack glanced at Torrent. If this was a match to the death, it couldn't possibly end well.

-/|\\-

Torrent stared at the new dragon. Something about it seemed familiar. It was a greener teal, and about the size of a young dragon. This fight was to the death, though, and he wanted freedom. The signal to start the fight was given. The new dragon and Torrent advanced towards each other. They circled around each other, eyeing the best way to attack. That was, until Torrent noticed something: The new dragon was also focusing on dragging his tail in the sand a specific way. It formed letters, going in a circle: " - J A C K"

Torrent looked up, and cocked his head. The dragon nodded. Torrent lunged for Jack, intentionally missing to one side. Jack caught him, and redirected the jump into the centre. The crowd cheered. The writing in the sand was different now.

" ? ?"

Torrent nodded. Jack cocked his head. He lunged for Torrent, but Torrent easily sidestepped Jack. The writing changed again.

"H O W ? H O W ?"

Torrent eyed the stands and the exits. The arena was open-air, but there were Skywings all along the circumference. They would never get past the arena walls... not without help, anyway. Through the palace, however... That was a different story. Torrent started trailing the sand-letters.

" - E"

The dragons nodded at each other. Simultaneously, they turned to the open dragon portcullis-entrance and charged the palace. Jack plasma-fired the internal portcullis, and the two dragons raced through the halls. They turned this way and that, running like the wind, and eventually reached open air on a sort of balcony. They ran to the edge and threw themselves off of the ledge. Air rushed past Torrent as the pair fell. They threw their wings open, and their descent slowed. Jack led Torrent to a small opening beneath the palace ledge. When they landed, Torrent kept watch while Jack reverted to his human form and climbed into a metal box. The box had scratches on the sides, and there was a tube sticking out of a round thing at the top. Torrent heard a buzzing noise from the box, and it soon started to change. The metal plates started to shift from some sort of machinery hidden underneath. Pieces of the box changed, until what was left was a bigger, black box. Blue stripes decorated the exterior, and a pair of metal wings came from the lower end of the box. A metal door opened on the back. Jack ran in, and Torrent squeezed through behind him, into the impossible space beyond.

-\|/-

Torrent's first reaction was shock. He could fit inside here comfortably, which had him staring around at everything. Jack was too busy in a maintenance door to notice. He soniced the interior workings of the ship's Time Rotor, trying to see what could possibly be causing the disturbance. The sonic's scanner pointed him to Torrent's pendant, which reminded him of something he wanted to do. He grabbed a pen from the tin lockery thing and asked for Torrent's pendant.

"No way! I took it off for you once, and not having it wiped my memory!"

"That's what I'm trying to fix. I just need the pouch."

"Fine, take it." Torrent took off the pendant, once again weirding him out when he reverted to a human. Jack opened the pouch, and took out the scroll that contained Torrent. Jack started revising the scroll, to change the magic affecting Starclimber Jack/Torrent.

(IRL Jack's annotation: Jack rewrote the scroll to say this:

"Anyone who wears this as a necklace charm will have the following affect them:

\- They shall become a blue Seawing named Torrent whenever they put on the necklace.

\- They shall not be able to have forced amnesia, and any memory blocks will be removed. (Annotation's Annotation: This does not remove Torrent Jack's Seawing memories, it unlocks his human memories.)

The parts about being a Skywing PoW and not being able to take off the pendant were removed altogether. Everything else remained unchanged.)

When Jack finished, he rolled up the scroll, and replaced it in the pouch. He returned it to Torrent, who put it on. Almost instantly, he recoiled, hands to his head.

"That'll be a flood of memory," Jack said. "You'll remember being yourself now. I kept half of your memories intact, Torrent, and unlocked the other half."

Torrent/Jack smiled. "Everything... It's coming back now. Thank you, Jack... Thank you." He stopped. "Is it OK if I keep Torrent as a nickname?"

"Sure. Now, then..." Jack examined the pouch. "That piece of parchment is part of the larger artifact draining the Starclimber's Time Rotor. I've synced it to the sonic's scanner. If we can find the artifact, then we can fix the Time Rotor."

"Alright, then!" Torrent cheered. "Let's go!"


	6. Pyrrhia, Part 5

Scarlet was furious when she heard the pair of scavengers had escaped the palace. Now they would probably undo everything that Scarlet had done to get the pair under control. All of the glittery gold plating her throne room did nothing to blind her of what had happened in the arena. She fumed on her throne, pondering how she should execute them. Should she rip their claws out, and then quarter them? Or should she behead them? No... Scarlet smiled. She should subject them to hugs. From Peril. Yes, that would teach them a lesson. She called a recruit, and told him to FIND THE SCAVENGERS, GET PERIL AND BE QUICK ABOUT IT! She sat on the throne. Yes... The perfect execution formed in her mind. She could almost see it...

-/|\\-

Torrent sulked as he and Jack were dragged into Scarlet's throne room. They had been caught almost straight away, and judging by how they had been received, Scarlet hadn't been too happy about their bid for freedom. They arrived in the throne room, which was plated with gold. One wall of the room was kept low, looking out over the Sky Kingdom. Scarlet sat on her throne, wearing a gold chainmail shirt, and fuming at Jack and Torrent. Torrent could practically see the smoke coming out of her ears. Scarlet looked at the scavenger and dragon when they came in, her gaze strong enough to bore through titanium. The dragon queen opened with a long, boring, shouty monologue about reparations and damage. Both Torrent and Jack perked up and listened when Scarlet mentioned execution.

"That's right, you two insufferable blights on Pyrrhia will have hell to pay for what you did! Three moons, you're worse than Ruby's bad moods..."

Jack spoke up first. "Please... Queen Scarlet, your omnipotence... Have mercy!"

Scarlet shot him a withering glare that sobered him up. "After you've polished all the gold in this throne room, THEN we can talk about mercy! Peril, it's time to meet some new friends..."

A bright orange dragonet came out from behind the throne. The smoke from behind the throne appeared to be coming from her. "Friends?" She saw the scavenger standing beside the Seawing and raced right over. She hugged him quickly. "AWW! He's so CUTE!"

Jack said nothing, but instead changed to his dragon form. He nudged Peril semi-playfully, and appeared unburned. "Cuteness can be relative to size and species. Just be careful with me. I didn't really like my first hothead stage, and I don't think I'll appreciate a second one."

Peril thought it over for a split second, then started sniggering. All the while, Scarlet looked furious. She shouted at the two dragons in a tone that would burn through the Sun.

"Fine, then! If Peril can't do her job, then I'll have to do it for her!" She sent Peril away, and got up from her throne. Jack and Torrent had to look upwards to see her face. Jack reverted to his scavenger form, and Torrent did the same. Jack unsheathed his sword, and removed a second sword from his belt. He tossed it to Torrent, who strapped the sword to his belt and unsheathed it. Jack and Torrent nodded to each other, and they ran in two separate directions. Scarlet eyed the two, and started attacking Jack. However fast Jack ran, Scarlet was there when he tried to outmaneuver her. She swiped one of her talons at him, and he hit the gold-plated wall. Jack yelped in pain. He was sure he'd broken at least one bone. Scarlet walked up towards him.

"Looks like your friend isn't coming to save you."

Jack gulped. This was the end of the line.


	7. Pyrrhia, Part 6

Torrent circled around Scarlet. The Skywing queen had her attention focused on Jack, opening Torrent up for opportunity. He left the throne room, and bolted down the hall to escape. He skidded to a stop when he heard a shriek of pain. His heart sank. Jack was most likely dead. Still, he had to go see what happened. He sprinted back up the hall, arriving in the throne room. Jack lay on the floor, a smear of blood leading to his body. He looked at Torrent, and his eyes pleaded HELP ME. Torrent nodded at Jack, and flipped a catch on his sword. The blade split in half lengthwise at the crossguard, and revealed a steel tube. A small box was attached to one end, and the crossguard's ornamental glass was moved by little metal arms into a scope's position. The handle folded, and a trigger was revealed.

"OI! SCARLET! I'M RIGHT HERE, YOU OVERGROWN LIZARD!"

Scarlet whirled around at the insult, and Torrent opened fire with his rifle. Most of the bullets pinged off of Scarlet's scales or chainmail, but a few hit their mark. Torrent kept up the withering barrage of pain and called to Jack.

"You still got that sonic?"

"Yeah..." said Jack weakly.

"Use it. It'll call the Starclimber."

Jack removed the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, and buzzed it. After a single minute, the great black starship hovered over the open segment of the throne room, and unleashed hell with its 50-caliber machineguns. Using the diversion, Torrent grabbed Jack, and carried him out. He ran through the palace, past guards racing to the throne room, and looked for a hospital of some kind. He ran into a malevolently large Skywing, and Torrent stopped. The new Skywing wore an oblong locket around his neck, and glowered down at the pair of scavengers.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Out."

The Skywing approached Torrent, snarling. The sonic screwdriver started to pulsate its buzzing sound. Torrent took it out, and waved it around. The interbuzz interval seemed shortest pointing at the Skywing, specifically the locket. Torrent quickly took out his sword, changed it to rifle mode, and sniped off the locket. It clattered to the floor, and something about the Skywing shifted. He transformed, in a manner not unlike Torrent, into a smaller, acid-green dragon. Using this moment of distraction, Torrent kicked open the locket. A scroll spilled out, and the sonic screwdriver identified it as the source of the power signature. Torrent grabbed it, fireman-carried Jack, and ran. He reached the same balcony where he and Jack had jumped off of earlier. Jack, now unconscious from pain, paid no heed to any of this. Torrent leapt off, calling the Starclimber with the sonic screwdriver in his teeth. The ship appeared below him, and hovered at a constant altitude. Torrent landed relatively softly, and carried Jack inside. He put the Dragonheart on a small bench, and flipped a switch on the console. A golden light enveloped the 650-year-old hero, and Torrent turned his mind to other problems.

The scroll was simple enough. Torrent just had to cut out the writing that said "Drain the strength from my enemies" - Who even wrote that? Some mass murderer or something? - and rip up that part of the parchment. The sonic screwdriver blipped a few times, and the Time Drive of the Starclimber vworrped once. Torrent dropped the parchment out of the Starclimber, and looked back to the bench. Its work was for the most part done, and Jack was almost completely healed. Jack sat up, and looked around, disoriented. Upon determining his location, he turned to Torrent.

"Bookmark this dimension," he said.

"Why would I do that? You nearly got yourself killed!"

"Just do it. Trust me."

Torrent flipped a few switches on the console. A beep came from the console, and the Time Drive vworrped again. Jack examined the last of his newly-healed injuries, and got up.

"What was that med bed?"

"Pokémon heal bed. Like the kind you find in a Pokémon Centre."

"Well, it certainly did the trick. I'll put the screwdriver back. Oh, and put in these dimensional coordinates," Jack said, handing a slip of paper to Torrent, "I want to visit someone." Torrent nodded and threw the Time Drive lever, and the Starclimber vworrped into thin air, leaving Pyrrhia behind.

-/_\\-

Me: So! That's one adventure, chronicled for the ages!

Jack: Finally...

Me: Anyway, Jack and Torrent have stopped by briefly before venturing into the unknown, so if you have any questions for them, ask them in the comments below!

Torrent: No comment is too strange!

Jack: With exceptions, of course. If you have any ideas for where to head to next, though, fire away!

Torrent: Hey! What about me?

Jack: In case you've forgotten, I have a magical necklace too. So SHUT IT.

Torrent: Make me.

Jack: I AM OVER FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OLD. SHUT UP.

Me: Quiet, you two! Anyway, if you have a question for Jack and Torrent or an idea for where to go, say so in the comments below!

All: Please leave a vote and subscribe!


	8. Torrent's Story (Character Backstory)

For anyone who's read up to this point, keep going. There's still adventure in the works! You may want to know Torrent's backstory, though. It serves as the memory and item origin for his character. His story will, other than this, go unpublished on the Internet. Since Torrent's adventures are very lengthy, I'll sum up his story quickly. The Q&A and Destination Request from the end of last chapter still hold up.

When we first hear of the boy that would eventually become Torrent, he finds a black dragon egg in the year 2013, and the dragon that hatches tells him to run, which he does.

He falls through a dimensional portal, and finds himself in a strange grotto. He finds the magical Rift Blade, instructions to play the Song of Time, and a sonic screwdriver and flashlight. He gets kidnapped by shadow beasts, and thrown into a dungeon. There, he meets Link, transformed into a wolf by shadow magic, and Midna, his companion and holder of proxy. Together, they escape Hyrule Castle, and are sent on a quest by Zelda to save the world. They remove some of the dark magic covering Hryule, and Jack followed Link up to the Forest Temple, the remains of the Deku Tree. There, he found the Starclimber, and learned how to use it most useful function: The Time Drive. He travelled back to the era of the Hero of Time, and retrieved the three Spiritual Stones. He travelled back to his original time, and aided Link in finding the Master Sword. He then time-travelled one more time, and intercepted Link and Zelda in their battle with Ganondorf. He provided Link with a Smash Ball, and left the battle due to the Starclimber being damaged. After Link defeated Ganondorf, Torrent set up the whole scenario to be a paradoxed mess of predestination, leaving the Rift Blade with Link.

Lacking a weapon, he landed at Beacon Academy, forging himself a new sword, and in his words "pimping it out to the max".

He journeyed to Equestria then, and really hasn't told me that much about it, other than it being his first encounter with dimensional reconstruction factors and the origin of his unicorn horn. To dispel any questions, yes, the cutie mark went away, and no, he doesn't want to go back.

His next time flight took him to the Sinnoh region, 2005, his crash-landing being a result of colliding with a little blue box in flight. Still new to the region, he befriended an Ivysaur and showed off a brand-new technomagical transforming sword-rifle the Starclimber generated for him. Circumstance led him to befriend The Doctor, and Torrent and the Doctor hatched a plan that saved the world from those who wished evil upon it.

Torrent's third adventure took him home. He reunited with the dragon he had left, now named Marinza, and defeated Ganondorf once again with Ivysaur and Link's help. During the battle, Torrent showed off one of the Starclimber's abilities, one he would later use to land on the continent of Pyrrhia: Converting the Starclimber into an M4A3E8 medium tank using technomagical servomotors. After Ganondorf was defeated, Ivysaur, Link, and Marinza parted ways with Torrent. Later still, Torrent set up an infinite power loop generator using the Time Drive and the Starclimber's batteries, and took off for dimensions unknown, meeting his counterpart Jack.


	9. The Dalek Extermination Of Earth: Part 1

Jack and Torrent flew the Starclimber through the Time Vortex, the Time Drive vworrping as they tried to keep the ship stable.

"So let me get this straight... You chose to visit a third copy of us?!" Torrent asked.

"Yes! Were you wondering why he looked so familiar?" Jack threw his weight onto a handful of buttons, shifting the Starclimber's yaw. The hull rocked from an burst of turbulence, and Jack was thrown against the Time Drive. Jack felt something in the machine shift, and looked back to examine it.

A strange force was tearing off large chunks of the Starclimber, and casting them off into the Time Vortex.

"Um... Torrent! Take a look at this!"

Torrent's focused expression changed to one of disbelief as the Starclimber was ripped apart. "That's impossible! The ship should be able to take this kind of stress!"

"Apparently not! Hold onto something!" Jack said, clinging to the Time Drive. The last few bits of the ship disconnected, flinging the pair into the Time Vortex. Jack and Torrent looked shocked, as air rushed past them, where both of them knew there shouldn't be air.

"What's going on? The Time Vortex shouldn't be able to sustain a non-vacuum state!"

"Then we've probably entered a different bit of terminal space!"

Something took over the wanderers as they flew. Their bodies changed shape, eventually resting in a form not unlike a certain small plastic figurine.

"The hell?!" Torrent shouted over the intense wind. "We look like..."

"Lego figures... Especially because of the dimensional reconstruction factor."

"English, please?"

"The dimensional reconstruction factor is when a dimension traveller's body is altered because the dimension's ambient energy changes the specific instructions that the DNA bits read entail. In this case..."

"We've entered a Lego universe, and judging by our range of motion, it's probably one of the video games."

"Yes. Although, nothing I've encountered has terminal space involved..."

They heard a vworrping sound from the terminal space up ahead. Jack let go of the Time Drive, and willed his wings. The fast air currents let him control his heading easily, and he soon had Torrent in tow in his Seawing form. The vworrping sound turned out to be a 1950s Police Public Call Box, spinning through the terminal space. Jack and Torrent turned to each other, shocked faces showing recognition. Jack and Torrent reverted to their human forms, and the doors of the TARDIS opened. The Doctor looked out, and called to the two wanderers flying through the rift.

"You two haven't heard any wheezy, grinding noises recently, have you?"

Jack and Torrent glanced at each other. "Well, yes, but-" Jack started,

"It was our ship-" Torrent continued,

"And it fell apart?" The Doctor finished. "Well most vehicles that aren't specifically built for this bit of interdimensional rifty space will start to fall apart after too much exposure."

"But-" Torrent tried to argue.

"The Starclimber was not specifically built for spacetime travel in terminal space! The fact that it had ion engines should've been proof enough!" Jack rebutted.

"If you two are done bickering, I can give you a lift home," The Doctor offered.

"Nah, it's fine, we'll stay floating around here forever," Jack said, sarcastically. "Let's go."

Jack and Torrent maneuvered into the doors of the TARDIS, which closed and locked after they entered. The cavernous room beyond took Jack's breath away, but Torrent seemed unimpressed.

"So what? The Starclimber was at least as big as this."

"You're forgetting," Jack said, "that the Starclimber was at least as big as this on the outside. This is inside something the size of a phone booth."

"Yeah... When you say it that way, it is kind of impressive."

The Doctor looked at the two wanderers, and back at the console. "Judging by your outfits, I'd guess you were from 21st-century Earth originally. You'll be back in a jiffy, but possibly a few hours or kilometres off. Don't worry." He paused for a second. "I'm The Doctor, by the way."

Jack pointed to Torrent. "Hello, Doctor. That's Jack, but call him Torrent to avoid confusion, and I'm Jack."

"Hello, both of you. Jack... That name rings a bell. Have I met you before?"

"Remember Spear Pillar? Your 11th body?" Torrent hinted.

"TENTH, thank you very much. And yes, I remember you now. Welcome back aboard, Jack. Or should I call you Torrent now?"

"Torrent, please. It saves with confusion when you have an identical person of the same name right beside you half the time."

"You two look similar. Are you twins? Or... Past and future selves? Or dimensional copies? Batman told me about that last one... He briefly met a copy of himself. Didn't really like it."

"We're dimensional copies, actually. We have no idea what brought us here, but it was a lot like this rift here. We've been wandering for a bit now." Jack said.

"Oh really? Well, welcome aboard the TARDIS."

The TARDIS rocked, and The Doctor looked at a viewscreen, with Gallifreyan writing all over it.

"We might have to take a quick detour... There's a bit of trouble in 2025."

Jack's face darkened. He knew what that time period entailed... and he didn't want to go back to it. The Doctor pulled a few levers, and the TARDIS vworrped accordingly.

"Typical Daleks... What is their fascination with Earth? That's MY fascination!"

Something hit the TARDIS, and the Time Rotor struggled to get the ship back under control. Jack and Torrent put their weight on a handrail.

"Doctor? Can we avoid any point between 2016 and 2166?" Jack pleaded.

"I don't think the old girl'll let me walk away from this one. You're coming for the ride, I'm afraid."

-\\_/-

A Dalek trundled along the corridor of the main assault ship, its fellows surrounding it. It rasped a report to the Strategy Sector from the Reconnaissance Sector.

"Time capsule detected!"

The Dalek in charge of the battle computers responded.

"Battle computers estimate a 97% chance that it is The Doctor!"

A new figure appeared on the bridge. A withered creature in a black, Dalek-shaped command-wheelchair-type contraption, a single blue eye shone from his forehead.

"Oh, I think we can up that to 100%... And this time, there's a zero-percent chance of The Doctor's survival!"


	10. The Dalek Extermination Of Earth: Part 2

The TARDIS materialized in a small crevice, a few meters or so beneath the ground. A storefront-style grate separated the small chamber from a passage. The ceiling was open, revealing a grey, ash-filled sky above. The walls were tiled with a surface that used to be white, now stained brown by dust. The doors of the Police Box opened, and The Doctor stepped out, followed by Jack and Torrent. The three looked around, The Doctor serious, Torrent in a state of shock and awe, and Jack trying not to cry. Sirens could be heard in the distance, and smoke filled the sky. A few ruined buildings could be seen from the bottom of the crevice.

"London, in the future..." The Doctor said, "... Or at least, what's left of it." Jack stifled a few sobs, closed his eyes, and tried to cover his ears. The Doctor continued. "Who else but the Daleks would cause so much destruction?"

Jack turned to the TARDIS. "I can't take this anymore... I'll be in the TARDIS. Let me know when you're done." He walked inside, and Torrent could see him sit in one of the chairs beside the console. Jack covered his face with his hands, and he cried to himself. Torrent turned back to The Doctor, and motioned "Let's just leave him be." A round, bronze flying saucer crashed into one end of the rectangular hole, sending chunks of rock and asphalt crashing down. Among the debris, a vworrping sound echoed through the chamber as the TARDIS dematerialized, its HADS going berserk. The Doctor watched with a stunned expression.

"No... No... My TARDIS... And in a beginner's hands, as well..." He turned to Torrent, who was looking around from the bottom of the hole. "Alright, let's get to it. I need to find a way up onto the street. I don't want to be late for the surprise welcome party." He turned to the grate, removing a device from his pocket. "These broken shutters are nothing the Sonic Screwdriver can't handle."

-\|/-

Jack looked up from his fetal position. The Time Rotor was working overtime, but The Doctor was nowhere to be found. Jack walked up to the console. Some silvery metal bricks had fallen and blocked a good chunk of the console and scattered a bunch of bricks onto the floor, but the main flight circuits seemed undamaged. He looked at the arrays of buttons and levers on the six sides of the console, and tried to make sense of them all. He looked over at the TARDIS viewscreen, and saw the TARDIS showing a sort of "Place hands here" kind of moving picture accompanied by some loops of Gallifreyan text. He put his hands into the designated notch in the console, and the TARDIS hummed in response. He thought of Torrent and The Doctor... and the TARDIS whisked him off to a wild ride.

-/|\\-

Torrent and The Doctor ran onto the street. Up here, the destruction looked just as bad as it sounded. Ruins were everywhere, and several of the wrecks were burning. They ran into the central square, as a Dalek ship flew overhead.

"DALEKS ARE THE MASTERS OF EARTH! DALEKS ARE THE MASTERS OF EARTH!" It lasered a canyon in a nearby street, making a bus an impromptu bridge but destroying the only way to climb up onto it. The Doctor sighed.

"Right on cue... Not so nice to see you again."

A pair of grey Daleks trundled out from behind the pair. "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" The Doctor looked back in surprise. "Get down!" He bowled Torrent over as two death ray shots sailed over their heads. Torrent was up in a flash, brandishing his sword. The Daleks were quickly decapitated, much to The Doctor's chagrin. "Problem solved," Torrent said. "What now? There's obviously more Daleks out there." The Doctor looked to a third street, searching for a place to go. The Daleks had thought of this option too, however, and blocked off access with a sort of forcefield. "A Dalek energy shield..." The Doctor looked at the sentry towers on either side. "... And heavily guarded too. There's nothing getting past that in one piece." Torrent had an idea.

"It must be something important. What if we shut it off?"

The Doctor smiled. "Yes... That's a great idea! There must be a power source nearby, and chances are we'll find a few more Daleks too."

Torrent scanned the burnt landscape, until The Doctor approached a vaguely Daleky structure.

"Don't feel dumb if you missed it, it's got a perception filter. Hiding in plain sight." The Doctor sonicked the generator open, examining a crystal inside. "Aha! What do we have here? Unmistakably Dalek technology... And if my calculations are correct... and they are... then this is one of the generators for the energy shield." He sonicked the inner workings, causing the resonator to shatter and the generator to shut down. The generator started beeping quite loudly, and Daleks seemed to start coming from the woodworks of the ruins, advancing on the travellers. Torrent put away his sword, and strung his necklace around his neck.

-\|/-

Jack held on as the TARDIS rocked and shook. The various parts on the floor skittered to one side and the other as the TARDIS fell through the Time Vortex. Finally, with a wheeze and a bang, the TARDIS stopped moving, its journey complete.

Until something started banging at the the door. The doors groaned under the onslaught, and Jack could've sworn he heard something rasp "EXTERMINATE" as it wailed against the portal. The doors suddenly opened, and Torrent and the Doctor ran in. The Doctor snapped his fingers, and the doors closed and locked.

"You can turn," The Doctor huffed, "into a DRAGON?"

"It's magic," Torrent puffed, "from another dimension." He caught his breath, and turned to Jack.

"You cut that close," Torrent scolded. "We nearly got killed. There was a particle blaster!"

"Hey, you're alive and in what I'm going to assume is the most impregnable place in the Universe."

"He's right," The Doctor said, "Genghis Khan tried to break in once. He couldn't. Where to now? Disabling the generator there didn't power down the forcefield, so there must be more. What have we overlooked so far?"

"How about the crevice caused by the laser? We haven't bridged that." Torrent suggested.

"Yes! We'll need some sort of tall object to get over onto the bus. Some thing with lots of handholds..."

"A tree?" Jack asked.

"Yes, a tree. Or something like that."

"Well, we'd need to wait 10 years or so before it's tall enough to climb. Anyone got any ideas?" Torrent objected.

"Look around you," The Doctor said. "You're in a time machine. We've literally got all the time in the world!"

"But..." Jack said, "Doctor... The impact of the debris from earlier destroyed the part of the console you used to fly us here. We're stuck."

The Doctor looked around the floor of the TARDIS, examining the different-shaped bricks around the console. "Actually..." he said, "I have an idea."

The Doctor walked around the console room, gathering the different bricks, assembling them into a small metal machine. It had a laser mounted on a head shaped like a dog's, and its main body was trapezoidal and light grey. White letter plating identified it as K-9. The Doctor sonicked some of the impromptu circuitry, and various lights flashed on the robot. The Doctor replaced the access door.

"System restarting... All primary drives functioning." The robot turned its head, and examined the three TARDIS travellers with its photoreceptors.

"Accessing memory banks... TARDIS security data found. Reading..." K-9 turned to the Doctor. "Pilot identified: Doctor, the. Time Lord. 13th regeneration." K-9 turned to Torrent. "Passenger identified: No last name given, Jack. Prefers to be called Torrent. Human." K-9 trundled in Jack's direction. "Passenger identified: No last name given, Jack. Species unknown. Further study required."

The Doctor looked at Jack curiously. He waved the sonic screwdriver at Jack, scanning him. He opened up the core, and examined the readings. "K-9's right," he said, astonished, "you don't read as human. I'd assumed you were, but there's an abnormality in your DNA, comprising something like..."

"Crystal?" Jack finished, fingering his pendant. "It's magic from another dimension, inextricably tied to my... soul, consciousness, life force, use whatever word you want for it. It's still a part of who I am."

"Oh, I see," The Doctor said, understanding. "Do you have any special powers you want to show me now?"

"I would, but it's a bit cramped for it in here. I might break or crush something."

"That's alright. We can try it outside."

"There's a bunch of hatey death machines out there, remember?" Torrent said. "We'll need to try it somewhere else."

"That reminds me," The Doctor said. "K-9, there's debris blocking the console. Blow it up." K-9 wordlessly turned to the console debris, and fired its nose laser. Within a plancktime, the chunks of metal were gone. The Doctor stepped up to the navigation console, and set a destination.

"I'm going to the armoury," Jack said. "Who know what we'll find when we return here."

The Doctor threw the dematerialisation lever, and the TARDIS vworrped into the Time Vortex.


	11. The Dalek Extermination Of Earth: Part 3

London's Central Square was nearly deserted as the TARDIS vworrped into existence. The Doctor, Jack, and Torrent stepped out. Jack looked around, a sad expression on his face.

"What's wrong?" Torrent nudged Jack.

"Nothing... Just contemplating mortality." Jack sighed. "The worst burden of a long life is outliving everything you love... I learned that the hard way."

"Long life?"

"I'm roughly 750 years old. I've watched eras pass and civilizations fall."

The Doctor looked at Jack. "750? You don't look a day over 16."

"Magic," Jack reminded.

The three found a patch of garden in the middle of the circle. A pickup truck with a small crane sat by the soil, unattended. A sapling sat on the truck bed. The Doctor walked up to the crane controls, mounted on the back of the truck, and sonicked them. The crane planted the tree, and the truck drove off. The Doctor put his Screwdriver away, and turned around.

A number of various blue portals opened up, displaying terminal space similar to the stretch that tore apart the Starclimber. Out of the portals trundled Daleks, blindly firing their weapons into the street. The few pedestrians in the area ran, some of them screaming. Jack and Torrent drew their swords, and The Doctor removed from his coat the only thing he could think of to use as a weapon... A spoon.

"It looks like the Daleks have picked up a few timey wimey tricks of their own," he whispered. "We'll have to fight." He looked at the group of Daleks gathered before the time travellers. "I am The Doctor," he proclaimed at the advancing Daleks, "and this is my spoon! En Garde!"

The three time travellers charged the Daleks, Jack raising a reflective shield he found in the TARDIS Armoury. He'd neglected to grab his own before getting sucked into interuniversal adventures, so this one would have to do. Torrent switched his sword to long-range mode, and peered down the pair of lenses that passed for a scope. He'd have to aim precisely, as his explosive ammunition couldn't penetrate this kind of armour.

Dalek death rays rained like a river of painful electric death. Some of the rays reflected off of Jack's shield, returning to - and exploding - their senders. Torrent managed to blind a few Daleks, while the Doctor managed to destroy each and every Dalek he fought with one tap with the spoon, without getting hit himself.

When the wave of miniature tanks was over, more portals opened up, releasing more Daleks. The Doctor called the TARDIS over with his sonic screwdriver, and opened the doors. Jack and Torrent ducked inside, for safety from the approaching Daleks, and The Doctor looked at the crowd and smiled.

"Well, fellas, I'd love to stay and reminisce, but you know how it is... Things to do, planets to save..." The Doctor closed the TARDIS doors, and the blue box vworrped away, going back to the future.

* * *

The city of London still burned when the TARDIS returned, but the first sight Torrent and the Doctor saw when they stepped out was a brand-new tree, standing tall over the bus. Torrent climbed onto the bus' roof right behind The Doctor, as a Dalek saucer obliterated the roof bit by bit, right behind their feet. The Time Lord and his companion jumped off, landing in front of a house. There was a pair of cars in front, lying useless. A brick archway stood to its right, next to a T-junction on the road.

The Doctor looked around. "Ever since I arrived in this universe, I've known one good thing about anything you can find," he said.

"What's that?" The Doctor tapped the cars with his spoon. They fell apart , revealing a bunch of parts that shifted around on the ground every so often.

"You can find help in just about any corner you look in, if the corner you look in is a corner that gives help." "What?" "When in doubt, try to destroy everything." The Doctor turned to the piles of bricks sitting before him. "Let's see... What can we build with this..." Within a few minutes, the pile of bricks was assembled into a decent-sized scissorlift. Torrent climbed up onto it at The Doctor's orders, and stepped on a pressure pad built onto the surface. The scissorlift rose up, and Torrent spotted a Dalek control panel in one of the apartments in the building. Torrent jumped off of the scissorlift, and in through the apartment's broken window, and took out his sonic screwdriver. He sonicked the control panel, and the wiring inside sparked and fizzed. The Doctor watched from the scissorlift, keeping an eye on a ruin to the left of the house. Torrent finished his work, and turned back to The Doctor.

The Time Lord looked to his left, and back at Torrent. "Is there a door there?"

"No."

"Also, how did you get the shielding down on the generator?"

"That was a shield generator?"

"Yes. How did you do it? You're still alive, so it's not tearing the wires out."

"I have a sonic screwdriver." Torrent removed the device from his pocket and showed it to The Doctor.

"It looks like mine... Is it a replica?"

"I don't know. It does the job, but I don't know whether it was designed to look like yours."

"Curious... This window here is the only one broken." The Doctor scanned the window's perimeter with his sonic.

"It was also the first one installed. If we meddle with time a bit..."

"Then we can reach the generator!"

"And in this universe, not everything is affected by time travel!"

"How do you know that?"

"I locked onto my friend Wyldstyle's scanner when I met her past. In my past, then her future, I sonicked it to make sure it couldn't be locked onto. The scanner's timeline mandated it be locked onto at least once."

"Wow."

"Yep. Shall we call the TARDIS?" Torrent nodded, and The Doctor drew his sonic screwdriver. The light buzzed, and the TARDIS vworrped into existence around them. Jack looked up from one of the chairs, looking less bad-memories-breakdown and more just-plain-bored.

"Hey, guys. Got anything new about the future?"

"Just a plan to shut down another generator. Have you ever wanted to visit the Industrial Revolution?"

"Why not? Sounds like a huge improvement from this place..." Jack nodded to the doors. The Doctor stepped up to the controls of the TARDIS. He pulled a few levers and twisted a few knobs, and the Time Rotor bobbed, signifying a dematerialization. The Doctor raced around the console, and the TARDIS eventually landed. Nothing could be heard from outside. The doors of the Police Box opened into the same red brick archway, except covered in snow. Thick snowflakes were falling lightly onto the ground, forming a white blanket stretching to both sides of the cobbled road. A few snowmen could be seen on the other sidewalk, top hats and scarves decorating their packed whiteness. Jack's breath frosted into a cloud right in front of his eyes. He wrapped his arms around him, put his hands in his armpits, and shivered. It was COLD here, and Jack wished he had his old green parka from before the Purge.

"Here we are..." The Doctor said, "Victorian London... The Gelth... Weng-Chiang... a T-Rex in the Thames... I've got a tale or two to tell from my time here."

Torrent led Jack to a scaffold, made unclimbable by an ice-coated ladder. It sat in front of a building in progress, with four window slots in the front wall in a 2x2 grid. A wooden crane held one window sill premade, sitting in the top right of the wall. A set of closed, wrought-iron gates sat to the right of the building. The Doctor followed the dimensional copies slowly, tasting a fingertip of snow from the ground.

"It's strange how quiet it is... and there's a sinister look to this snow."

Torrent drew his sword to try and destroy something, but The Doctor stopped him.

"You've had your fun. Let Jack try this one." The Doctor turned to Jack. "We don't have what we need to progress, which is a source of heat. Where do you think we can get one?"

Jack looked left and right. A few people in long coats and bowler hats were walking around, enough to call the street populated. He decided against his go-to plan, and looked around at his surroundings. A few wooden crates lay here and there, and a small metal brazier sat on the ground. Jack walked up to the crates, and peeled off a few bricks. He stacked them underneath the ladder, close enough to be a major source of heat should it burn, but far enough to prevent a fire hazard. He repeated this until a decent-sized pile of wood lay beneath the ladder. He walked over to the brazier, and felt how much heat it emitted. Satisfied, he pushed it over. The embers from the fire fell into the pile of wood, and a small fire was going after a bit. The fire grew, burning its supply of wood, and the ice on the ladder had soon thawed.

"Well, it's not what I would do," The Doctor said, "But it works."

The Doctor climbed up the ladder, and reached the crane controls. It was a pair of cranks, controlling the horizontal and vertical position of the object lifted - in this case, a window frame. The Doctor expertly operated the crane, maneuvering the window frame into position in the top left of the building. He made a few tiny adjustments to the position of the frame, then climbed down.

"That's all we need to do. Either this works, or we've wasted a lot of time." The trio walked into the TARDIS again, and The Doctor took them back to 2025.

* * *

The ruins burned, and the smoke choked Torrent, burning his lungs, which were fresh from the relatively clean, cold air of 1895. The scissorlift stood where it had before they left, which was a good sign. Torrent didn't want to get lost in time. He climbed up onto the scissorlift, which The Doctor raised to the level of the windowsill he had placed the first window in. To their surprise and relief, it was blasted open, the same way as the first time. Torrent climbed into the window, and spotted a hole in the wall, just big enough to walk through. He crossed the barrier, and found a generator like the one in the square, all Daleky with a few spinning bits. Torrent sonicked the generator open, and he saw the crystal resonator, sitting undefended. He scanned the crystal, identifying it as quartz, and set the frequency to quartz's resonance. The resonator shook and cracked, and eventually shattered, leaving the generator broken and useless. Torrent and The Doctor lowered the scissorlift, and walked up to the TARDIS to fly it back to the energy shield. The TARDIS key was nearly in the slot when the brick archway exploded.

"EXTERMINATE!" Five Daleks trundled out, three of them glinting in the firelight. The Doctor threw his spoon at one of the shiny ones, and it bounced off, not even leaving a dent on the armour.

"EXTERMINATE! DESTROY THE TARDIS!"

The Doctor and Torrent backed up into the Police Box doors, which remained closed to the outside world. The silver Daleks advanced, shouting a harsh, raspy battle cry.

"EXTERMINATE!"

Torrent gulped. He was backed against a wall with nowhere to run. The Daleks surrounded the time travellers, keeping their ray guns aimed at them.

"EXTERMINATE!"

Torrent closed his eyes.

 _So this is how I die._


	12. The Dalek Extermination Of Earth: Part 4

Torrent closed his eyes. _So this is how I die._

Daleks surrounded the time travellers, forming an arc with the armoured Daleks in the centre. The Doctor and Torrent stepped to either side of the TARDIS.

"EXTERMINATE!" they rasped in near unison.

"EXTERMINATE!"

-\|/-

Jack watched the events outside unfold on the TARDIS viewscreen. Tears streaked down his face as he watched in silence. He had lived through the slaughter of nearly all of humanity and lost all of his friends, to time, demons, or otherwise, and here it was, happening again. He closed his eyes, trying to force the tears out. He felt his stomach knot in dread, fear, and sadness. It wrenched his being. A fire lit in his heart, and it burned through his veins. Gathering his strength, he stepped towards the TARDIS doors.

-/|\\-

Torrent took a deep, shaky breath. If this was his day, then he couldn't run. He'd known it would come eventually.

Then, the TARDIS doors were thrown open outwards, and Torrent was knocked aside. A teal blur shot out of the blue box, taking down the centre Armoured Dalek as it did so. It skidded to a stop on the other side of the intersection, sparks flying from beneath its claws. It turned to face the remaining Daleks, snarling.

"The hell?!" The Doctor cried, ducking as the Daleks starting shooting everywhere. "Is that... a DRAGON?!"

"Yes," Torrent answered as he started wailing on the nearest non-armoured Dalek. "And I'm surprised he didn't show you in 1895."

"What?"

The two Armoured Daleks left identified the dragon as the greatest threat, and coordinated their fire at the teal reptilian.

"Guess who!" the teal dragon taunted, crushing a second Armoured Dalek in one talon.

The Doctor gasped.

"You can't be! That's..."

"Magic from another dimension," the dragon finished.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier, Jack?" The Doctor said.

"Because the TARDIS was too cramped. Besides, I could easily defeat the Daleks we met with Naga. It just wasn't needed."

Jack roasted the third Armoured Dalek with an explosive fireball, and he reverted to human form. He kept his dragon form's wings and spiked tail, however. Back spikes could also be seen running along his spine. The half-dragon had a grave expression on his face.

"Enough about me. Let's save the world."

The three time travellers ran through the brick archway, beyond which there was a road. It led to a small, walled-in area. There was a pair of great blue doors, painted letters on which read "I. M. FOREMAN". A chain and padlock held the doors shut. The Doctor read the label on the doors, and smiled.

"Oh! I remember this place! I ran a scrapyard here! It served as a place to keep the TARDIS while I looked after my granddaughter."

The Doctor sonicked the lock, and frowned. "Deadbolt. I can't open it."

Jack stepped towards the lock. "Allow me, then." He took a deep breath, and blasted a constant stream of flame at the lock. Ten seconds later, a lava-orange, half-melted piece of metal fell onto the ground. Jack let up on the fire barrage, and Torrent and the Doctor pushed the gates open. The junkyard still held bits and pieces of old machinery, which The Doctor started dismantling. He stacked various parts - mostly energy vent devices or old jet engines - near the back wall, which was defended by a small energy shield. He connected this wire to that, placing this part there, and constructed a small rocket. He sonicked it, and jumped on top of it, and soon the rocket had taken down the energy shield and given The Doctor a place to jump to. He looked back at Jack and Torrent, and called down to them.

"Head back to the TARDIS! I'll take down the generator here!"

Jack and Torrent nodded, turned and ran. The Doctor turned around, and examined his path. Beyond a window standing in his way was a computer terminal directing a Dalek charging at the generator. The Doctor walked up to the terminal, and sonicked it. He pressed a few buttons here and there, and overrode the Dalek's controls. The Dalek screamed as it flew out of control, the gunstick firing blindly. It destroyed a wall separating The Doctor from the generator, and blew open the generator casing. The Doctor ran up to the generator, and shattered the resonator inside. He ran back to the TARDIS, and informed the Jacks of what had been done. Torrent decided to come with him, for old times' sake. Jack still didn't want to come, as he wanted to take a break from the wanton destruction wrought by the Daleks. The Doctor led Torrent past the energy shield. A teleporter sat unguarded, and The Doctor ran up to it. He sonicked it once Torrent had joined him on the pad, and the pair disappeared in a flash of golden light. They emerged from the teleporter inside a corally-looking corridor, which The Doctor ran through silently, up to a computer. He sonicked it, and tried to determine a temporal origin of the ship. Torrent watched The Doctor's back, keeping an eye out for any Daleks they could encounter. The Doctor located the ship's origin, and ran back to the teleporter. He sonicked it to try to program Central London as a destination, and Torrent kept watch again. The Doctor kept working, until he was elbowed by Torrent. He looked over his shoulder, and saw a bunch of Daleks crowded around him.

"UNAUTHORIZED COMPUTER ACCESS DETECTED!" one Dalek rasped.

Torrent had his hands raised in a gesture of surrender, and his sword was slung across his back. The Doctor sonicked the teleporter one last time.

"What? I wasn't doing anything..." The Doctor said, as the teleporter fizzed and died. "That was like that when I got here."

A wizened creature in a Dalek chair base approached Torrent and the Doctor. The Doctor frowned as he saw the newcomer.

"You may have a new face, Doctor, but I can see you're still the same old prattling fool. Who's your new companion?"

"None of your business, Davros. You're not so much a bad penny as a mad penny. What have you done with the population of Earth?"

Davros smiled cruelly. "I have... given them new... employment."

The Doctor looked around at the Daleks in shock. "The Daleks... They're...?"

"Yes, Doctor. Your precious humans."

Torrent broke his silence. "You can't get away with this." He squeezed back tears, and tried to hold the revelation's remorse in. "I'll make you pay for what you've done." A few tears escaped his eyes.

"I see your companion is weak as well. Confine them to a holding cell!" Davros turned and trundled away as a handful of Daleks escorted Torrent and the Doctor to the ship's brig.

-\|/-

Jack waited in one of the TARDIS seats. Torrent and The Doctor had been gone too long now to just count their lateness as a fluke of luck. Someone had kidnapped the two, and Jack needed to find them. He walked up to the TARDIS console.

"Now... How do I start takeoff?" He looked at the TARDIS view screen, which displayed Gallifreyan loops. Jack disregarded this, and checked each console. He found something that looked like a airplane's throttle. He toggled it into the "down" position, and the Time Rotor in the centre started vworrping. Jack circled the console to the slot where the "insert hands here" had pointed last time Jack had flown the TARDIS, and put his hands in. He thought of Jack and Torrent once more, and the TARDIS whisked him off.

-/|\\-

Torrent and the Doctor sat in their cell. It was really quite big, and so probably intended for a lot more people. The Doctor was pacing around, trying to think of a way out. Torrent sat against a wall, his eyes closed. They were stuck here, possibly until they died. Couldn't The Doctor see that? Jack didn't know where they were, and the Daleks weren't going to let them out anytime soon. Then, Torrent heard something on the edge of his hearing. It got steadily louder, until Torrent could identify it: It was a vworrping noise, like the noise the TARDIS made. The Doctor looked up at the sound, slowing and stopping in his tracks. A familiar blue box faded into existence in a corner of the cell, accompanied by a growing amount of Dalek noise from outside the cell. The TARDIS doors opened, and Jack looked out.

"Looks like I've come to your rescue again," he said. "Get in."

"Oi! My TARDIS, remember?" The Doctor scolded.

"Yeah, yeah, just get in here before the Daleks pop in and fry you."

The TARDIS doors closed, and The Doctor ran over to the console. He plugged in the temporal origin he had found on the Dalek flagship, and the TARDIS departed, for the coordinates inputted into the destination matrix.


	13. The Dalek Extermination Of Earth: Part 5

The fields of Trenzalore were grey and barren. Gravestones were everywhere, recounting each and every victim of a bitter war in the past. Now, nothing was left but dust and graves, and the angels. The angels had always been there, and they always would be. All was quiet, and no wind blew. Then, a strange vworrping sound was heard. A slight breeze blew across the still fields as the TARDIS materialized. The blue box appeared on a ridge littered with tombstones. The doors opened, and The Doctor stepped out. Jack and Torrent followed.  
"Trenzalore..." The Doctor said, "...But how? This shouldn't even be possible."  
"Why is there a graveyard here?" Jack asked.  
"The last battle of the Last Great Time War was fought here... but that timeline has already changed, so I shouldn't be able to come here."  
"Ah. I see."  
The Doctor led the two travellers towards a giant, dilapidated version of the TARDIS. He got them in through the broken lock, and walked into the control room. He sonicked one of the consoles and whacked it a few times, and stepped back, satisfied. The smile disappeared when the TARDIS console exploded, sending bricks everywhere. Bits of old TARDIS fell from the ceiling, and the Doctor assembled them into an out of place, 21st-century-English-looking structure.  
"What's that?" Torrent asked.  
"It's a dimension-specific object that functions as a TARDIS bus stop. When the navigation console can't read anything about the current dimension, I use one of these if it pops up."  
"Oh, that's cool! Can I fly the TARDIS into it?"  
"No."  
Jack looked at the swirling, sparkly, crackling field left behind by the Time Rotor.  
"What's that?" he said.  
"It's my time stream. If I've ever done anything, it'll be there. Don't touch anything you see in it."  
Jack peered in, having spied a familiar event. In it, the Starclimber was being ripped up. He reached towards the spacetime event, and several dark objects flew out of the portal. Each was about three times as big as Jack, and they flew in and hit the TARDIS' wall, having come at great speed from the Time Vortex. They hit the room's floor, gravity taking over. Jack and Torrent walked over.  
"How...?" Torrent breathed, amazed.  
"This was right before we met the Doctor... so his timestream has some influence even before it touches something. Doctor, any suggestions for building stuff using whopping great pieces that you can't lift?"  
The Doctor looked out of the TARDIS exterior as Jack and Torrent looked over their shoulders, making the two dimension travellers' eyes go wide.  
"Wyldstyle referred to it as a 'Master Build'... She jumped around, pulled pieces into a vortex, then built something out of them."  
Torrent scrutinized the pieces, then felt a strange presence in his mind. He didn't know what it was, but it highlighted specific bricks, and urged Torrent to put them together in a specific way. Torrent obeyed the force, and soon a replica of the Starclimber was mostly put together. Torrent had to stop due to space problems inside the TARDIS control room, and walked inside the mostly-rebuilt spaceship. The first thing that caught his attention was the Time Drive, and he noticed a neon-teal propeller-like apparatus in the middle of the column, splitting the neon-blue Time Drive neatly in half. Some of the late-20th-century-Earth equipment had been replaced by ultramodern-looking equivalents, giving the whole ship a sci-fi feel. Torrent looked around, taking in his new home. He turned around and walked out, where Jack and the Doctor were waiting. He gave some instructions to the Starclimber via his sonic screwdriver, and the Starclimber vworrped away, taking the unattached pieces with it. Torrent stepped into the TARDIS behind the Doctor, and Jack climbed in last. The Doctor flew the TARDIS over the TARDIS busstop, and he threw a lever. The TARDIS gravitated gently onto the pad, and dematerialized. The journey from there was just like any other TARDIS trip. After about a minute, the TARDIS landed, and the Doctor opened the doors and stepped out. Outside was a vast, red planet, and a city could be seen from the top of the tower the TARDIS had landed on. Jack and Torrent stepped out, and they heard a strange cackling noise from behind them. The three TARDIS travellers turned around, towards the origin of the sound, and they saw Davros, sitting in a cream-and-gold coloured Dalek throne.  
"I know where we are now," the Doctor whispered, "...We're on Skaro."  
"I'm guessing it's a big problem that we're here," Jack whispered back."  
"Out of the frying pan, and into the fire..." Torrent mumbled.  
"Welcome to my new empire, Doctor. It is fitting that you should be the first to fall to the power of the Daleks!"


	14. The Dalek Extermination Of Earth: Part 6

"Welcome to my new empire, Doctor. It is fitting that you should be the first to fall to the power of the Daleks!"

Jack and Torrent drew their swords. Daleks soared out of the red sky of Skaro, alighting on the rooftop Davros had the TARDIS team trapped on.

"Nice to see you again, Davros," The Doctor quipped, "...but surely, you must be running out of escape pods by now?"

The dimensional copies started slicing up Daleks, and the Doctor examined the situation. Three small generators sat shielded on the rooftop, wired to Davros' throne. As Davros charged an Arc Beam and a pair of Armoured Daleks descended, the Doctor hit one of the generators, whose shield had been diverted to fuel the Arc Beam. The blow from the Sonic Screwdriver left a dent, but the generator continued functioning. The Armoured Daleks closed in, rasping "EXTERMINATE!" with each passing second. At the very last second, a plasma bolt came out of nowhere, and destroyed the first Armoured Dalek. As the second one looked to see what happened, a second plasma bolt incinerated the Kaled mutant's armour, and killed the mutant inside. The Doctor looked to see what had saved their lives, and saw K-9 sitting right outside the open doors of the TARDIS. The Time Lord snapped his fingers, and the doors of the Police Box closed. K-9 trundled beside Jack, and readied his nose laser.

"Secondary pilot identified: Grayson, Jack. Dragonheart."

Jack, Torrent and the Doctor all turned to K-9.

"It looks like the TARDIS likes you," the Doctor said, "but this is hardly the time to investigate this. Let's deal with Davros first, before anything on Skaro manages to kill us."

Davros charged another Arc Beam, and this time, the TARDIS team was ready. Jack and Torrent lightning-rodded the energy by planting their swords in the ground, and the Doctor - sitting on top of K-9, because that was possible in this universe - blew up one of the small generators with K-9's nose laser. Davros' Arc Beam cut out, and Davros scrambled in the controls of his throne, trying to compensate for the sudden loss of power.

"You will not be so fortunate next time... Attack them, my Daleks!"

Jack smiled, and raised his sword. Torrent switched his sword to rifle mode. The Doctor whipped out his Sonic Screwdriver, and K-9 readied his nose laser. Together, they smashed the hordes of Daleks that surged at them, and used K-9 to destroy the Armoured Daleks when they appeared. Davros charged a second Arc Beam, and K-9 charged his nose laser. They fired at each other at the same time, and the two plasma beams met and surged, as in the final battle of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. K-9's nose laser prevailed, due to a more stable power supply, and the laser hit Davros. Davros was prepared for this, though, and the damage was deflected to a second generator, which exploded.

"Stop that! NO!" Davros shouted, feeling his life-support systems shift into emergency power mode. He charged a final Arc Beam and unleashed it at K-9, unshielding the generator and destroying the robot before it could react. He summoned more Daleks, and ordered them to exterminate the Doctor and his companions. With K-9 destroyed, the TARDIS team could not destroy the Armoured Daleks that approached them. Jack, Torrent and The Doctor backed up into the TARDIS, surrounded by Armoured Daleks.

"It seems your luck has run out, Doctor, and you really will die today. I'll make sure the history books record my valiant efforts to stop your menacing plot to destroy the Daleks," Davros said. "Any last words?"

"I just want to say..." Jack said, catching Davros' attention, "...Gotcha."

Jack lunged forwards, his wings and tail increasing in size, and his body shifting into a form more reminiscent of a certain large reptilian. Armoured Daleks crumpled underneath his talons, and he beelined straight for the final generator. Using one swipe of his powerful claws, the generator was sliced up, rendering Davros without any options for attack. Armoured Daleks shot at him, and Jack deflected them with his sword, which had gone from being a hand-and-a-half hilt length as a human to more of a short sword or dagger as a dragon. Jack breathed fireballs at the Armoured Daleks, and they exploded vehemently. The Doctor examined his surroundings while Jack occupied the Daleks. He ran to the generators and started tearing pieces off. Torrent whipped out his sonic screwdriver, and started sonicking into the atmosphere. When Jack had obliterated the last of the Armoured Daleks on the rooftop, the Starclimber vworrped in, and engaged the Daleks in the sky above Skaro. Jack reverted to his half-dragon form, and the Doctor assembled the various pieces he had gathered from the generators into a control panel, similar to the one controlling the secondary shield generator on Earth in 2025. Torrent already had his sonic screwdriver out, so he sonicked it. When he had unlocked the connected Dalek computer's rotary antivirus software, he stepped back and let the Doctor hack the computer, as the Doctor knew exactly where to hack into a Dalek to take it down. The Doctor tapped furiously at several buttons, and eventually he stepped back.

"For future reference," he said to Davros, "it's a really bad idea to route all your targeting software through a single computer node!" He pressed one final button, and the Daleks all turned towards Davros and started firing.

"WEAPONS TARGETING IS BEING OVERRIDDEN! I CANNOT CONTROL! I CANNOT CONTROL!" one Dalek shouted as it started firing on Davros.

"NO! STOP! I AM YOUR CREATOR!" Davros shouted as the death rays rocked his throne.

"We cannot override The Doctor's commands!" another Dalek shouted.

"Curse you, Doctor!" Davros hissed, as he pushed a button on his throne console.

"That would be your fleet exploding, Davros!" The Doctor said, putting a hand to his ear. The throne activated a rocket booster in the bottom, and started to rise into the air.

"I hope you're well insured!" The Doctor called.

"CURSE YOU!" Davros screamed, as his throne shot off into the distance.

"See you next time, Davros... the Doctor muttered. He turned to Jack and Torrent, who had expressions of relief and triumph respectively on their faces. The TARDIS team walked into the blue box, and the Doctor dematerialized the TARDIS.

"Hey, guys, look what I nicked from Davros," Torrent said, holding up a sonic screwdriver identical to his. The new screwdriver was a lot more worn than the Doctor's or Torrent's, but it had the same design. "I also think I know where my screwdriver fits into its timeline. Doctor, program these coordinates into the TARDIS," Torrent said, and whispered into the Doctor's ear. Jack wandered into the TARDIS hallways, saying something about looking for the armoury. He carried the reflective shield with him, and Torrent asked the Doctor where the workshop was on the TARDIS. Upon receiving the coordinates, he walked into a different hallway, bringing the two sonic screwdrivers with him. The Doctor checked the nav console and the flight systems, then relaxed into a chair. This ride was going to take a while.

-/|\\-

The round stone-brick grotto was silent. Black pixels spiralled up into the sky, and twilight could be seen through the destroyed roof. A stone door separated the round chamber from the temple beyond, and a sword sat in a pedestal, gold and sapphire glinting off its hilt in the twilight. A slight breeze whisked through the round chamber as the TARDIS materialized, the dimensional reconstruction factor removing the animated-plastic-brick quality from its blue wooden panelling. Torrent opened the doors and stepped out, looking around and remembering his adventures in Hyrule, that all started here. He looked down at the sonic screwdriver in his hands, freshly repaired from the TARDIS workshop. He took a deep breath, and set it down on the floor. He turned back to the TARDIS, and strode inside.

"So I'll give my Screwdriver to Davros eventually?" the Doctor asked.

"Yeah, but in the meantime, try to think of a new sonic device to use. Maybe a pair of sunglasses?"

"Thanks. I'll see how they do." The Doctor typed some Gallifreyan loops into the TARDIS fabrication matrix, and pushed what Torrent could only assume was enter. Jack dematerialized the TARDIS, and took it to a certain patch of Time Vortex. When the TARDIS had reconstructed into the same set of blue bricks, Jack opened the doors.

"This is goodbye, Doctor," Jack said, a hint of sadness in his voice.

"It's been nice to see you again," Torrent confided.

"I don't think any of us know when we'll meet each other again, or even if that will happen," the Doctor said.

Jack and Torrent walked up to the TARDIS doors.

"Goodbye, Doctor," they said, in near-perfect unison. Then, they hurled themselves into the Time Vortex, Torrent's sonic screwdriver in his hand.

The Doctor snapped his fingers, closing the doors. He turned to the TARDIS view screen, and found that there was a bit of trouble still in this dimension. He set the nav console towards it, and sat down in a chair by the console.

-\|/-

Jack stood inside the newly-summoned Starclimber.

"So that's how your Screwdriver ended up with you," he said.

"Yeah," Torrent agreed, "I finally know."

Jack walked up to the pilot's readouts, looking over Torrent's shoulder. "Bookmark this dimension as well," he said. "I had a bad feeling when we jumped out of the TARDIS. I think we'll return here, soon enough."

Torrent did as Jack asked, and boosted their way out of the safe zone created by the TARDIS. The teal propeller-like thing mounted in the new Time Rotor started spinning, and the Starclimber refrained from falling apart. The dimensional duo left the dimension of plastic bricks behind, going forward to new horizons.

-/_\\-

Me: How DID you get the sonic screwdriver from Davros, anyway, Torrent?

Torrent: I'd rather not say...

Me: Anyway, you two can stay here for however long you like. Ask me if you need anything.

Jack: Do you have any dimensional coordinates you want us to visit? I'm kinda tired of just wandering off...

Me: No, but I know a few people who do! Fair readers, if you have any suggestions for a destination, let us know in the comments! Also, questions for Jack or Torrent can be left in the comments!

All: Please leave a review!


	15. Whatever Happened To Jack?

Keep reading! Jack and Torrent aren't done with their adventures yet, and they're about to meet a new companion who might be able to help them out in some situations! In the meantime, I'll fill you in on what happened between the end of New Beginnings and Jack's abduction by portal.  
Jack's first adventure with his crew from Steelvale took them on a quest for revenge: Jack had been killed by Quintus, leader of the Wind's Kiss, and only his Dragonheart crystal, set inside the pommel of his sword, Naga, was keeping his conciousness alive. His friends banded together to save him, and went on a journey across Steelvale in one of Jack's reconstructed tanks. They marauded dungeons and sought advice from the Princess of the Elves, and eventually reached the ruined fortress where the Wind's Kiss was holed up. They barged in and battled the top leaders of the Wind's Kiss, and Quintus revealed that he was actually a powerful Aer Mage. Jack's team chased Quintus to Port Town, where they duelled on top of its clock tower. They managed to defeat Quintus, and revive Jack. In that adventure, Jack made a few friends that would follow him to the ends of the Earth.  
A few months later, in the Elven capital, Jack and his friends learned of a new catastrophe, and Quintus is back! They journeyed through Steelvale once more, finding DNA-altering objects that augment their fearsome combat capabilities. They even take to the skies, and eventually found what Quintus was after, beating him to the prize. They fought him once more, and with Jack revived, Quintus was defeated for good. Later on, Jack was caught by a mysterious purple vortex, and sent hurtling through time and space...


	16. A Dragon's Era of Steam Power, Part 1

The Starclimber was flying semi-smoothly through the Time Vortex, when it started to shudder and shake. The whirly teal propeller in the Time Rotor started flashing, and Jack threw his weight against the yoke. Torrent had decided to let him fly the Starclimber for a while, while he was tinkering with his sword, and Jack's first flight was not going down like this. He struggled to keep the Starclimber in control in the sudden turbulence, and eventually decided to throw the Time Drive lever and look around.

The result shocked him. He saw a familiar landscape, surrounding a familiar castle. The Starclimber pitched nose first towards the ground, and Jack pulled the Sherman Deviation lever. The servomotors whirred, and Torrent was surprised as he was pulled from his workbench.

"Did you activate the Sherman Deviation?"

"Landing! Ask me later!"

The Starclimber hit the ground rolling, and Jack wailed on every brake he could find. The Sherman skidded along the ground, and Jack finally slumped back into the pilot's chair when it stopped. He looked up at the hatch above him, and climbed out. The terrain in front of the Abandoned Fortress was as he'd remembered it: Grassy, open, and slightly chilly from the Carpathian Plateau's altitude. He clambered off of the Starclimber, and executed a flawless three-point landing on the ground, a muscle memory from his time flying. He felt the solidness beneath his feet, and sprawled himself all over a patch of grass next to the tank, looking up. The early-afternoon sun shone overhead, warming the half-dragon with its light. Jack closed his eyes, and smiled, basking in the warmth. This was what he and Torrent needed: A break. He could guide Torrent back to his garage, and they could rest there, until they felt like leaving again. No more adventure, no more danger. Just a good night's sleep without the Starclimber's Time Rotor ringing in his ears the whole time. Torrent climbed out of one of the turret hatches, and looked down at Jack.

"Having a nap, are we?" he taunted.

"It just... It feels great to be home."

"We're in YOUR dimension? Oh, great, now there's gonna be crazy magic and way too many tanks for anything's good."

A new voice sounded, familiar to both Jacks, but in a slight British accent. "Actually, you're not far off."

The two Jacks turned to look at who was talking. They groaned when they saw an all-too-familiar face poking up from the hatch of a strange cross between a train and a tank. The tank had a brass or bronze look to it, augmented by steel bracing here and there. There was a pair of wheels at the front, and a set of tracks at the back. A funnel poked up from the top of the hull, sitting next to a turret. A boiler could be seen at the back of the tank.

"Well," Torrent said, "NOT your dimension, then."

"Hold on," the new Jack said. He disappeared into the tank, and emerged with a strange device. He pointed it at both Jacks, and it pulsed a subaural throb. The new Jack ducked into the tank again, and reemerged without the device. The new Jack wore a long teal coat, green satchel, white zip-up sweatshirt, which was currently unzipped, a red T-shirt, and a pair of blue jeans. He had a pair of black-and chrome goggles perched on his forehead, and Naga was strapped to his back, along with a bunch of drum-shaped canisters.

"Well, that explains it," the new Jack said. "A powerful magic is starting to worm into multiple separate universes and mash them together. At least, that's what the Screwdriver says."

"What's with the British accent, anyways?" Jack asked.

"Comes with the way I rebuilt humanity, I guess. What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I was flying the Starclimber, and ran into some turbulence," Jack started.

"He then activated the Sherman Diversion, and landed it here," Torrent finished.

"Well," the new Jack said, "I can't say you're not welcome here."

"Thanks," Jack said. "If you want to come with us when we leave this universe, you're welcome to come along. In the meantime, we'll need an obvious nickname for you so we can tell apart who's being adressed. Got any ideas?"

"How come I have to take the nickname and not you?"

"Because I've never really gone by anything other than Jack," Jack said. He grabbed Torrent's sonic screwdriver, scanned the new Jack, and checked the readings, "... and besides, it appears my universe is a few months older than yours is."

"So basically, you're pulling rank based on age? Seriously, we're the same age since our universe has the same divergence point. It's just that mine follows more parallels with a third timeline that both of our timelines are based off of. You DO realize that we're all fictional, right?"

Jack and Torrent replied affirmatively.

"What's the last major event for you been?" Jack asked.

"My friends banded together to save my semi-physical... self."

"Yeah, I'm also a few weeks ahead in the timeline."

"Well," a new, yet familiar voice said, "If it isn't the Last Dragonheart."

All three Jacks turned to look at the source, a young man in a white tunic walking out of a purplish, swirling portal. He carried a gladius short sword at his belt, and his back hair was slicked back in a Draco Malfoy-esque haircut.

"Quintus," Jack and Steampunk Jack said simultaneously. Steampunk Jack looked to Jack.

"Is he yours?"

"Yeah."

"Is he trying to kill you?"

"Last time, he was, yeah."

"How come?"

"Bragging rights."

"Yeah, same."

"My, my," Quintus said, drawing his gladius, "There's more of you. My master can't have that... Especially that spacial-temporal abomination," he spat, leering at Torrent. "Come with me, Jack, and I won't have to kill you, and displease my new master. It'll be a win-win for both of us."

Jack drew his sword, while Steampunk Jack angled his tank and its turret. Torrent looked at everything going on with a meek expression, and stepped towards the tank. Quintus stared at Jack. Jack stared back at Quintus. Steampunk Jack watched the whole thing from his perch at the commander's hatch. Quintus took a few steps away from the portal, which closed, and charged at Jack. Jack raised Naga, and the steel clashed as the two warriors duelled. Steampunk Jack took the opportunity to shoo Torrent into the Sherman. Torrent got everything set up inside, and angled his tank similar to Steampunk Jack's. Naga whirled in a swishing, invisible force of death. Quintus, an expert in one-handed sword duelling, managed to parry all of Jack's blows, while attempting a few of his own. Jack saw them coming, though, and blocked them as they came. Jack blocked and parried, but he could not overcome Quintus' guard. Quintus saw Jack tiring, and let up on the attack, making a pressure dome around himself to stop Jack's sword.

"Now," Quintus said, "This is quite enough play. Let's give the big boys a try, now, shall we?" He stepped backwards, and another purple portal opened behind him.

A giant armoured vehicle rolled out. Gray steel plated the monster's bulk, supported by ten wheels three times as tall as Quintus. Crimson details surrounded the angles, and multiple turrets armed with plasma cannons took aim at the pair of tanks, which the armoured supercar dwarfed. Quintus windblasted himself onto the top of the supercar, and he smiled at the faces of pure terror on the Jacks. Steampunk Jack dove into his tank, and it hightailed it as fast as it could, the steam engine chugging as it gain momentum and velocity. The Sherman sent up a cloud of dust as it turned around and sped in the opposite direction. Jack turned and ran, his mind running blank except for one instinct: RUN. Jack had almost made it to the hilltop of the Abandoned Fortress when he was blasted into the air by a powerful gust of wind. The air current formed a pressure dome around him, stopping him from falling, leaving him hanging in the sky. He was spun around, bringing him face-to-face with Quintus. The Aer Mage smiled, seeing his captive utterly helpless.

"He told me you'd likely not be willing to cooperate," Quintus said. "My master, that is."

"Who is this master? And where are you taking me? Didja hear that, Quintus? QUIS? DOMINUS? EST?"

Quintus looked up at the trapped half-dragon, still smiling. "The only thing you need to know is that if you don't cooperate, you'll be in a lot of pain, very soon. I agreed to take you to him alive, but we did not agree in what condition." He knocked on a hatch on top of the monster, and a white-suited soldier, wearing a strange helmet on his head and an insignia like the supercar's on his left shoulder armour, lifted his head out.

"Yes, General?"

"Let's go to the Fortress in this dimension. I need to speak with our captive."

"But you're..." The soldier stopped when he saw Quintus glare at him. "Yes, General."

"So you're a general now, Quintus?" Jack asked. "Of what? The local convenience store?"

"I wouldn't play games like this in your position, Dragonheart," Quintus said. "Your friends aren't coming." Quintus spun Jack around, so he could see the twin plumes of dust descending from the Carpathian Plateau. Jack's heart sank. Quintus had won.


	17. A Dragon's Era of Steam Power, Part 2

Torrent raced his tank alongside Steampunk Jack's. The two tanks were just coming down from the Carpathian Mountains when Torrent heard something snap inside Steampunk Jack's tank, and saw it start to slow down.  
"What was that?" he asked.  
Steampunk Jack poked his head up from the commander's hatch. "The transmission blew out from the stress it took. I'd never taken it this fast before."  
"How fast will it fix? Also, your tank needs a TRANSMISSION?"  
"Yes, because the tank's wheels aren't that fast without amplified torque from the engine. The drive pistons are protected just fine by the armour anyway. Also, I don't know, I probably just need to replace one of the cogs or something."  
"Hey... That wouldn't sound half bad as a nickname."  
"What? That entire monologue?"  
"No, just 'cogs'. Don't you think it sounds cool?"  
Steampunk Jack held up a finger in a gesture to wait, and disappeared into the tank. He reemerged a few seconds later. "While Andy's fixing the tank... You said something about Cogs as a nickname? Yeah, it does have a nice ring to it."  
"How will we rescue Jack?"  
"I'm not sure... we can't attack that thing Quintus has head-on. It'll either crush us or blow us to bits, and personally, I'd like to avoid either outcome."  
"Same... but what if Quintus isn't in the AFV?"  
"You, sir, are a GENIUS! I can think of one location where that might be possible. How fast is that Sherman?"  
"41 kph top speed."  
"Alright, we're using mine then. It goes up to... I haven't measured, but with a brand new transmission, if we mod it, we should get more speed." Cogs ducked into the tank, and popped back out after a bit. "Andy's a bit miffed at having to mod the trans again, but he'll do it. Hop in. There should be enough room for you."  
Torrent set the Sherman to locked-until-sonicked mode, and hopped out. He climbed onto Cogs' tank, and slipped into the commander's hatch.  
The inside was a tad dark, but lit up by a wood-fuelled boiler fire in the back. Torrent's eyes adjusted. There were seats placed around the inside of the hull, with small equipment lockers next to them. Sitting in the seats were two boys and a girl, all slightly older than Torrent. A third was crouched near the centre of the tank, working on replacing the gears in a gearbox. Their faces all looked...  
"Do they seem familiar?" Cogs asked. "That'll be a déjà vu from the fact that there are two of us here, and you've been displaced about 600 years or so. They're all descendants of my friends, who sheltered from the Great Purge. Guys," Cogs said, "meet Torrent... or me... or a copy of me."  
Cogs' tank crew said hello, in a weary-yet-cheery fashion.  
"Your name's Torrent?" the dark-brown-haired boy working at the gearbox said. "What for?"  
"Technically, it's Jack, but Torrent's unique. It helps when you're surrounded by people with the same name."  
"Wow... you really are him... Name's Andy, by the way."  
"Hi."  
Andy finished what he was doing, and closed the gearbox. He took up an empty seat by a dark-blond-haired boy's, behind the gun breech. Cogs, standing on a platform, ducked into the tank and closed the commander's hatch.  
"You might want to hang onto something. These transdimensional rides can get bumpy. Jove! Dimension drive!"  
"On!" a black-haired, darker-skinned boy answered.  
"Then we're good to go!" Cogs yelled. "Alright, guys! Full steam ahead!"  
The tank slowly started to accelerate across the lowland fields of Ash River, and Cogs started humming the Spirit Tracks overworld music.

After about a minute, the tank started to shake and the world outside went dark and flashy. It only lasted for a few moments, though. When Torrent stopped clinging to a handhold for fear of his life, he looked at Cogs silently. Jove worked the control levers, bringing the tank around. Cogs opened the commander's hatch, and climbed out of the tank and onto the hull. He beckoned for Torrent to follow. Torrent climbed out onto the hull of the tank. Outside, it was dark. The sky was lightless, with only a pale moon to guide the explorers. A thick mist obscured some of the ground which the tank was chugging on, heading back towards the mountains.

"Where are we?" Torrent asked.  
"Welcome," Cogs said, "to Typhon's parallel universe... his Dark World."


	18. A Dragon's Era of Steam Power, Part 3

Torrent looked around. "So this is what a Dark World looks like..."

Cogs shrugged. "Well, I call it that, but really it's just a permanight parallel universe. But A Link to the Past really makes "Dark World" have a better ring to it."

The tank pulled up onto a plateau, with a grand castle standing on it. Quintus' supercar could be seen, sitting inert outside of the courtyard. Torrent wrapped his arms around his body and shivered a bit.

"Is it always so cold?"

"Comparatively, yes. But this is normal temperature here, since there's no big ball of heat in the sky."

The tank pulled behind a rock, obscuring its view from the fortress. Torrent and Cogs climbed off of the hull, and Cogs' crew followed suit.

"Now, I haven't really gotten to proper introductions yet. Guys, this is Torrent. He's me from another universe."

The crew said hello again, in a manner not unlike their first greeting.

"Torrent, this is my crew. There's James," Cogs indicated the dark-blonde boy, who wore a red zip-up sweater, "Jove," Cogs indicated the darker-skinned, black-haired boy, who wore a light blue collared shirt, "Helen," Cogs indicated the girl, who had long brown hair and wore a blue overcoat, "and you've met Andy." Cogs indicated the last crewmember, who wore a black, insulated zip-up sweatshirt. "Weapons ready, everyone?"

James hefted a long, double-bladed staff, Jove lifted a medium-sized harpoon gun, Andy ignited a laser sword, and Helen removed a small device from her coat, the one that Cogs had used earlier. Cogs removed a pair of bronze-and-steel revolvers from beneath his coat. Torrent drew his sword, switching it to rifle mode as he did so. Cogs stepped out from behind the boulder the group was hidden behind, and the crew followed suit. They advanced on the fortress, and was surprised to find its main gate open. They snuck in, weapons at the ready, expecting a trap. They traced a path through the fortress until they came to a council chamber, which had been redecorated since Cogs' last visit. A round device now sat in the far wall, inactive. It looked to Cogs like a dimensional door. The device was blue and round, and roughly two or three times as tall as Cogs. It was connected to a second round, silvery, metal, table-like device projecting a hologram into the air. Text floated above the table, reading "Breach detected - Inner fortress". As the crew entered, Cogs held up his hand.

"All of you... except Torrent... go back to the tank. He knows we're here." The crew left, leaving Torrent and Cogs alone. As soon as the crew was out of line-of-sight, a grate slammed down on the entrance, trapping Cogs and Torrent. The blue device started up, making a portal similar to the one Quintus had arrived in. Quintus floated out, propelled by wind.

"So you've come to save your friend... You're too late. He's been taken to my master and had his Foundation Element stripped. Combine that with the one he's got from Gotham, Metalbeard, Middle-Earth, Oz, Springfield, and Hill Valley... and he's nigh unstoppable. You'll die here, and I will take your Foundation Element as well." Quintus drew his gladius, and held up one hand, splayed towards Cogs. Cogs placed one hand on the hilt of the sword at his back, then thought better of it and drew his dual revolvers. Torrent stepped forward, but Cogs held a hand out.

"Stay back. He's too powerful for you."

"He's too powerful for you, too! Look what he did to Jack! What makes you think you're any different?"

Cogs frowned as he realized that Torrent was right. If he fought Quintus alone, he would be overpowered like Jack had. Torrent would be very helpful if he proved good in a fight.

"You're right..." Cogs started, but he didn't get any further than that.

"If you would be so kind as to spare me the pleasantries of this," Quintus interrupted, "I do believe we are about to have what you two would refer to as a "boss fight"."

Cogs turned over to Quintus, and smiled. He stowed his pistols, and drew Naga. The Dragonheart crystal at the hilt gleamed in the light from the holoprojector. Torrent stepped up beside Cogs. He drew his version of Naga, and raised it to point towards Quintus. Quintus smirked, and started hovering above the ground.

Cogs and Torrent dashed to either side of Quintus, who tried to blow them into the air unsuccessfully. Torrent hopped to his left, landing in front of Quintus. He lunged into the air as Quintus charged a wind blast, but dodged at the last second, leaving Cogs an opening for his Propellor Spin. Quintus managed to evade the worst of the attack, but took a few injuries. His concentration broken, he fell to the ground, where Torrent and Cogs started towards him. At the last second, he raised his gladius, parrying both Jacks' blows. Slicing rapidly, he focused his attacks on Cogs, the two warriors' swords becoming blurs. They sent sparks out where they clashed, and Cogs backpaced, leading Quintus around the room. Torrent saw his eyes widen, his brow furrow, and his mouth, once a thin line of concentration, turn into a vicious snarl. Cogs screamed as he parried Quintus, a scream of pain and grief, the the last remnants of Cogs' composure and sanity falling away.

Cogs intensified his assault on the Aer Mage, their swords flashing faster and faster. Torrent silently followed Quintus, keeping his sword out but directing Cogs on where to go. When Quintus had his attention so focused on Cogs as to constitute tunnel vision, Torrent switched his sword to rifle mode. He loaded a clip of rubber-tipped rounds, and and unloaded it at Quintus. A few rounds hit their mark, pushing Quintus into an apparent event horizon of the portal, and was swept off towards whatever dimension he had come from. Cogs ran to the holoprojector. He inspected a few buttons and switches, and mashed at least half of the switchboard. When that proved ineffective at closing the portal, Torrent looked the table over and drove his sword through the cables connecting the device to the portal frame. Abruptly, the portal closed off, barring Quintus from reentering. Cogs watched the portal disappear, and took a deep breath. He let it all out, relaxing at the end of the fight. He slouched down, letting his muscles relax, regaining his composure, tears falling from his eyes as he tried to bury his demons. Naga's point dipped, striking the stone-brick floor of the castle. He turned to the gate barring the entrance. He raised the sword, staring at the gem in its pommel. He took another deep breath, and the dragon obliterated the portcullis.


	19. A Dragon's Era of Steam Power, Part 4

Cogs and Torrent rendezvoused with the crew at the entrance. There were floodlights on around the entrance of the castle, scanning the ground for how the crew could possibly have gotten inside without being seen, but to no avail. The crew snuck towards the gap at the front of the castle where they could escape and get to their tank, but they were halfway across the courtyard when a new set of floods came on to the right. Everyone looked at the source, and felt the hope slowly, agonizingly drain from their hearts as they saw the source.  
"Not that supercar again..." Torrent breathed.  
Cogs stepped forwards from the group, and at least two laser cannons mounted in front sponsons rotated to face the half-dragon. Cogs had a huge smile on his face, conveying an expression that bordered on insanity. He stared up into the floods.  
"HELLO THERE! WE'RE GOING TO LEAVE! JUST TRY AND STOP US!" He turned into a dragon, right then and there, and started dodging plasma blasts. Torrent removed his own amulet from his pocket. Fiddling with the clasp, he strung it around his neck. He closed his eyes to avoid the change in scale and the sickening sensation that came with it, and he opened them when the feeling passed. The armoured supercar was still larger than he was, though now it was not by much. He jumped towards the car, latching his talons into the steel as it screamed and ripped open. The supercar tipped over, suspension screeching as it hit the ground. Alarms blared around the castle as Cogs' crew ran for the hills, taking a curved path to the boulder that hid the tank. Cogs reverted to his half-dragon form, while Torrent fiddled with the pendant clasp until it undid and released the magic. The two Jacks rendezvoused at the boulder, where Cogs started to lean on the tank.  
"Where'd you get your dragon form, mate?" Cogs asked. "It certainly wasn't Typhon's work."  
"Another dimension. It involves a period of amnesia I'd rather not go into now, since it involves remembering two different events at one time. It's confusing."  
Jove poked his head out from a hatch above his seat. "If you're done talking, we should go. The Wind's Kiss will be all over the place looking for us."  
Cogs nodded, and hopped onto the tank. Torrent followed, and soon the steam engine was chugging hard as it pulled Cogs' crew to safety. Torrent held his head and upper body out of the hatch, clinging to his rifle. As the tank picked up speed, and purple flecks started whipping around it, signifying an imminent wormhole departure, Torrent pulled his head into the tank, and stowed his sword. He sighed, disappointed at the group's loss of what had until now been one of his most constant friends. The tank shuddered as Cogs put his arm around Torrent's shoulder, and patted him on the back.  
"Don't worry..." he started. "We'll get him back somehow."  
Torrent nodded, but remained silent. Finally, he lifted his head. "Jack said there was a garage somewhere here. Do you have an arsenal anywhere?"  
Cogs smiled a sad smile. "Indeed I do. Jove, set a course for the Garage!"  
"On our way!" was the affirmative reply.  
"It's going to be a while, though," Cogs added to Torrent, "so try and get some rest."  
Torrent leaned back against a wall, and closed his eyes. He was more tired than he'd realized, and besides, as Cogs had said, it was going to be a long trip.  
Cogs opened the hatch on the Carpathian foothills. The sky was a vivid blue, and the sunlight was warm and bright. A light breeze blew past as the tank crossed the gently sloping terrain into the open grasslands of Ash River. Cogs surveyed the terrain, turning over the recent events in his head. If there was another Quintus running around out there, it meant that if Jack was older than he was, then Quintus wouldn't stay down. He'd have to warn his friends. Also, he hoped, Jack would stay alive. His Dragonheart crystal would keep him in a suspended state, but Cogs didn't know for how long. But if Torrent's idea was what Cogs suspected, then not even the anti-tank weaponry in Cogs' stockpile would be enough. Cogs looked at Torrent, who had his eyes closed and was leaning against a wall of the tank. It was at this point that Cogs noticed something shimmery about the air around Torrent's forehead. Almost as if something there wasn't quite right. Cogs filed it in the back of his head, then idly checked his watch and wound it. He yawned, his body finally realizing that it was tired from the Night Mode at the Wind's Kiss' fortress. Cogs closed his eyes, and leaned back in his seat. He cleared his mind, and focused on rest. It wasn't long before the tank had lulled him into a light, gentle sleep.


	20. A Dragon's Era of Steam Power, Part 5

The Garage was just as Jack had described it: An old church, seemingly unimportant on the outside but filled to the brim with supplies and weaponry. The upper floor of the storehouse part was a living quarters for Cogs, and right below the stairs up was a small table with a large map on it, the old waypoints labelled over with cities and landmarks of Steelvale. Torrent searched for Toronto on the map, but found it labelled over as "Dragon Valley". Torrent humphed. Jack had never mentioned Dragon Valley. He studied the rest of the map, taking in the details. The warm electric light provided by the steam generator Cogs had set up illuminated a bunch of X's drawn on with an ink quill. They were all labelled as possible locations of dimensional weak points, the nearest confirmed one being over in some kingdom called Alflon. Cogs' crew were busy restocking the tank's water and wood, while Cogs checked ammunition. His job finished, the alternate-reality Dragonheart walked over to Torrent.  
"Well, the tank should be good for the journey. Feel free to look at the weapon stash in the storeroom."  
Torrent walked in, and inspected the decent-sized array of weaponry Cogs had. Torrent picked up a wood-and-steel rifle with a scope on it, and ran his finger over a word carved into the side of the gun's wooden part.  
"Dragonov..." Torrent wondered. He raised the rifle, sighting through the scope. It looked to be in fighting condition, and Naga's rifle mode wasn't built for long range. He found a leather strap, and fixed it to a pair of nubs on the lock and stock of the rifle. He slung the sniper around one arm, and reemerged into the main part of the Garage. Cogs and his crew were standing around the map table , examining the best point to head to.  
"Considering how long I remained fully aware as a suspended consciousness," Cogs said, "I don't think we have the time to try these weak points until something works. We need to go through Alflon."  
"But you remember what happened there!" James argued. "We nearly got executed for attempted murder!"  
"One that we didn't commit," Cogs objected.  
"The army will still be watching us. We can't do anything brash."  
"We're still going there."  
James raised his hands in submission. "Unless our newbie has anything to say about it..."  
"I don't know this dimension as well as you do. Don't involve me," Torrent said.  
"It's settled, then," Cogs said. "We go to Alflon and try to access terminal space through the Temple of Asclepius. Whatever happens there, happens."  
The group climbed into the tank, but Cogs stayed behind with Torrent.  
"Out of all the weapons in the armoury, you picked that one...?" Cogs whispered.  
"Why? Should I return it? Will it self-destruct?" Torrent whispered back.  
"No, it's just... I used to use that before I built my Clockwork Revolvers. Funny, how the universe decides to work."  
Cogs climbed up onto the tank, then looked back at Torrent, who hadn't moved. "Aren't you coming?"  
Torrent replied affirmatively, and clambered onto the hull. He slipped in through the commander's hatch, and followed Cogs down. The tank, fully stocked with water and wood, smelled like a campfire. Smoke from the wood in the furnace passed through the protective grate, and through a grate in the top of the hull leading out. The tank shuddered as it started slowly accelerating, heading to Alflon. The crew was a few minutes out when Cogs stuck his head out of the commander's hatch, his goggles down for protection from dust, and bright light. He felt the breeze made by the passing air, and took a deep breath. He unfurled a map he had brought with them. He compared passing landmarks with the course drawn in pencil on the map. Everything was going smoothly. They approached and stopped by Port Town, where they refilled the boiler and Cogs synchronized his watch with the clock - Or, more accurately, synchronized the clock with his watch. Upon leaving the gates of the walled city, Torrent saw their course take them to an ancient forest, where the trees were tall and there was little foliage to slow down the tank. The tank slowed to avoid the trees, and Cogs directed Jove in a play-by-play on which specific path to take. After a few minutes of this, the tank emerged in a large field, the bright sunlight of which blinded Torrent after the cool shade of the forest. Cogs stopped the tank, and climbed up to sit with Torrent on top of the tank.  
"Welcome," Cogs said, "to Alflon."  
"Is it always this bright?"  
"You'll get used to it. For now, let's focus on getting to the Temple of Asclepius."  
The tank started to accelerate now that it was in open terrain, but Jove had to brake hard when a steam-powered armoured cart with a machine gun on it crossed the tank's path, blocking its only way to escape, as the tank could not reverse or turn on a dime due to the limits of its engineering. Armed Elven soldiers poured from behind and inside the cart, carrying rifles, and had a 70-degree firing angle around the tank. One man, in the centre of the arc, held up his hand.  
"Halt, in the name of Queen Laura! You will surrender your vehicle and your weapons and come with us."  
Cogs sighed. He was afraid this would happen. He called his crew from the tank, and promised Torrent that no matter what, Cogs would protect him. The crew surrendered their weapons to the commander - both Nagas, the Dragonov, the Clockwork Revolvers, James' Bladestaff and Chaos Blade, Jove's Harpoon Gun and stash of gunpowder, Helen's sonic screwdriver, and Andy's laser sword and RPG - and followed the commander towards the city, their tank following them with a few soldiers at the helm.  
Torrent glanced at Cogs, who had a look of pure dread on his face. What had he done?


	21. A Dragon's Era of Steam Power, Part 6

Torrent and Cogs stood side-by-side in the throne room of a magnificent castle, which sat in the centre of a small city. The throne was made of gold-painted wood and red velvet, and sat solitary on its raised platform. The two Jacks' attention was focused on a woman standing in front of the throne, glaring twin holes through Cogs with deep brown eyes. Torrent's face was angled towards the floor, betraying hints of dread and fear, while Cogs looked down and away from the woman, an awkward feeling in his gut. The woman had black hair, styled into a single braid running down her back. She wore a red dress, running down to her ankles, and a small red crystal - similar to Cogs' - on a pendant around her neck. She walked up to Cogs, never taking her eyes off of him.

"I never knew you had the audacity to come back here after trying to kill me," she said.

"We both know that it wasn't me, Laura! We're practically the last Dragonhearts left here, considering that Joe Bob hasn't been seen for the last seven hundred years, and he doesn't really count!" Cogs rebutted.

"That's not what the Elves think," Laura said, "Their previous ruler appointed me as their queen, and as far as they know, an outsider waltzed in and tried to kill me, with no reason whatsoever. Granted, that's what happened, but they still think that you tried to kill me. They think you're just trying to shuttle the blame to Quintus."

Cogs closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. "You're right," he said, "but Torrent, my crew, and I need our weapons and tank back and access to the Temple of Asclepius. After that, we'll be gone. Okay?"

"I'll give you a pardon and a free pass, but after this, it's not my fault if you get lynched."

"Thank you," Cogs said. "You're a lifesaver, in more ways than one. We'll be off as soon as possible."

"Don't do this again."

"I won't."

Laura signalled to the guards at the throne room doors to escort Cogs and Torrent out, and ascended back to the throne.

Later, on the castle grounds, Cogs, Torrent, Andy, James, Jove, and Helen boarded the tank. The Royal Guard watched the Dragonheart and his friends go, and the tank chugged into the city, making its way to the strip of road in front of the Temple of Asclepius.

After a bit of complex maneuvering through the city streets to get the precise orientation the tank needed, Cogs surveyed the space the wormhole occupied. To anyone going fast enough, the wormhole would open, leading to a complex bit of terminal space that could be used to traverse dimensions. Cogs ducked into the tank, and addressed his crew.

"Torrent and I continue alone from here," he said, "You'll have to either wait here or walk back to the Garage."

The crew was miffed by this, and begrudgingly climbed out of the tank. Cogs climbed out of the commander's hatch and into the driver's seat, while Torrent took up the space he usually occupied while in the Starclimber's Sherman mode, manning the main gun. Cogs placed both hands on the tank's control levers, flexing his fingers.

"You ready, Torrent?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

Closing all of the hatches on the tank, Cogs pushed both control levers as far forward as they would go. Gradually, the tank started to chug down the street. Gaining speed, Cogs had Torrent check the Dimension Drive, and make sure everything was in order. The tank raced down the city streets. Cogs felt a nervous feeling build up in his gut. What if the Dimension Drive was broken? What if the wormhole wasn't working? Cogs swallowed nervously. He'd come this far, and he wasn't going to chicken out. The tank reached the stretch of road in front of the Temple of Asclepius, and the tank started to shake and shudder as it raced through the wormhole and across time and space. The stretch of terminal space was reassuringly purple to Cogs, and he was about to let go of the controls when he remembered that Jack's whereabouts weren't in the Dark World.

"Hey, I just realized... This thing can't steer while in terminal space like this. Can your version of the Starclimber?"

"Yeah. One sec..."

Torrent pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket. Clutching it securely, he opened the tank's hatch. The purple vortex snapped wind at his jacket, but Torrent refused to be sucked off of the tank. Pointing his screwdriver above his head, he activated it and kept it on for ten seconds. Surely enough, a few seconds after the sonic switched off, the Starclimber came to their location in the Time Vortex.

Torrent ducked into the tank and notified Cogs before leaping off of the tank, riding the winds to the Starclimber's rear hatch. Cogs followed him, and closed the hatch once both Jacks were in.

"My friends will be stranded without the XV-1," Cogs said.

"XV-1?"

"The tank's name. I don't think I mentioned it before, because it was just THE tank. XV-1 is short for Expeditionary Vehicle, Mark 1."

"Nice name. How do we get it back?"

"Can you tow it back?"

Torrent ran up to the pilot's chair, sat down, and started pushing buttons at an incredibly fast pace. Cogs watched as he linked a plasma cable to the XV-1, and set a course for Alflon. The Starclimber's Time Drive vworrped, and the previous departure point faded into view. The XV-1 swung underneath the Starclimber as gravity took effect, and Torrent used this to lightly drop the tank in front of the Elven city's gates.

"We'll probably be leaving after this," he said. "You'll have to make your goodbyes now."

Cogs nodded, then opened up the back hatch as the Starclimber landed. He proceeded down the boarding ramp, meeting his crew at the bottom.

"Well," he said, "James... Jove... Andy... Helen... It's been fun adventuring with you guys. My quest is taking me outside of this dimension, though, and I'm leaving you here to defend Steelvale. Take the tank back to Malinovka, and use whatever you need to in my Garage. Good luck."

With that, Cogs turned and reboarded the Starclimber. He nodded to Torrent, who detached the plasma cable, fired up the engines, and took the black spaceship into the space between universes, a confident grin on his face. Cogs watched as Torrent piloted the ship with expertise, and looked around.

"This is just as I remember writing it," he said. "Nice job keeping it in shape."

"That's just the beginning," Torrent said, "with something like this, you don't need to-"

The sentence was cut off as both Jacks were thrown to one side. The ship strained as it fought against the turbulence, but it was helpless against the aileron-roll that nearly catapulted the Starclimber out of the Time Vortex, and into whatever lay beyond.

-\|/-

Bound, gagged and bruised, Jack was dragged into the alien palace. Its blue stone walls rose into the starry sky, with circle-and-connector designs etched into the stone glowing a rich blue. The atmosphere had the appearance of midnight, but Jack wasn't cold. Quintus held Jack's bindings, dragging him across the throne-room design to... a throne. A strange, blue, transparent man with a galaxy shining from inside his chest sat on the throne, wearing a strange insectoid helm. He held a staff which was decorated with the same roundel design as the walls. A small portal could be seen inside the head of the staff. His eyes glowed white, watching Quintus drag Jack up to the throne. A prison area sat on the relative right of the room, which held a giant shipshape mech, a boy with styled black hair a little older than Jack dressed in red and yellow, a girl with long brown hair dressed in a blue-and-white checkered shirt and overalls, and a small, humanoid creature with frizzy brown hair, dressed in a brown coat, red vest, and black cloak. On the other side of the room was piled a vast array of weaponry, and between them sat a small square area, lowered from the floor and sealed off with a forcefield. Trinkets sat on top of their respective images, the group of which was a glowing green crystal, a small gold ring, a wooden chest, a pair of sparkly red shoes, a glowing green rod, and a steel-cased, flashing yellow triad. Quintus dragged Jack to the foot of the throne, where Jack looked around, groaning. He saw the man on the throne - would Galaxian be a good name for him? - and stared, silent. The Galaxian stared back, waiting. He turned to Quintus, and asked him a question.

"Where is the Foundation Element? Keeping prisoners around is only good if you get something for it."

"The Foundation Element is on his person, Lord Vortech. His necklace is the key."

The Galaxian - Jack supposed his name was Vortech - leaned forward, inspecting Jack. He sat back, and instructed Quintus on what to do.

"Take it from him."

Quintus walked up to Jack, raised him by the collar, tore off Jack's pendant, and dropped Jack to the floor mercilessly. He tossed the crystal to Vortech, who caught it with the portal on his staff. The crystal warped to the forcefield, descended beneath it, and came to rest on top of an image of it. Jack suddenly felt an immense pain, like his heart was being torn out. He gasped and squeezed his eyes shut, and curled up into a ball. He had never known any pain like this before, even in all of his wandering across Steelvale. The world went dark around him, leaving nothing but Jack, the pain, and an empty blackness.

-/_\\-

Me: Well, that's one more universe to cross off of the list!

Cogs: Now, let's not forget who the star was in this whole thing...

Torrent: ME!

Cogs: Well, I was going to say ME, but considering we're the same person, I'll let that slide.

Me: Oh-kayyy... ANYway, welcome Cogs to the Starclimber's crew!

Cogs: Aww... You don't have to do that!

Me: It's actually policy...

Cogs: ...

Me: Not!

Cogs: (Sarcastic) You totally had me there...

Torrent: While these two sort out what's what, I'll take the liberty to say please leave a vote if you liked this! Also, if you have a question for any of the characters, please say so in the comments. Same goes for universe requests! Until next time!


	22. Cogs and Jack: A Compare-Contrast

You may - and probably have - wondered what the differences between Cogs and Jack are. This interstory chapter is dedicated to outlining the main differences between the two Dragonhearts' worlds.  
\- As referenced in the beginning of the story arc, Cogs' world was a week or two behind Jack's (at the point of collision) and is a few months younger, technically following more parallels to both Dragonhearts' common origin timeline after Ezekiel attacked the origin Jack.  
\- Cogs chose to build on what he knew more and start rebuilding technology with steam power, instead of relying on a combination of technology and magic like Jack.  
\- Cogs' timeline did not separate from the Origin Timeline until the end of June 2016, resulting in increased knowledge of what was supposed to happen. By this, I mean he got a watch on a chain around his neck and he actually knows what LEGO: Dimensions is.

-/_\\-

Cogs: I can't help but notice that you've got a crystal pendant too. Is it magical?  
Me: No, it's just normal crystal. However, it's the exact size and shape of the Dragonheart Crystal.  
Cogs: No, it's not - Wait, wait, it is!  
Me: It may feel weird as your memories change as the canon does. Good luck with that, I can't help you.  
Cogs: Whatever...

-\\_/-

\- Cogs is also more spontaneous and slightly more hyperactive, owing to the fact that he also has a very slight superiority complex, because he's the legendary Dragonheart everyone respects, so his pride went out of control.

-/_\\-

Cogs: OI! I HEARD THAT!  
Me: No, you didn't.

-\\_/-

\- Cogs also has only one tank, because one is all he needs. If he want to change something, he modifies the XV-1.

That's all that's different between Cogs and Jack, and they're not really much, other than having different areas of expertise: Cogs is more Industrial Revolution tech and clockwork/gears focused, while Jack is more focused on technomagical stuff.


	23. A Daemonic Conundrum, Part 1

A Crash Landing - Crake's Problem - Void Thinning - Frequencies

"WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?!" Cogs yelled.

"I'm not sure!" Torrent yelled in reply.

An alarm started blaring on the console, and Cogs started complaining of a sharp headache. Torrent checked what was going on, and saw a cross between a tractor beam and a power drain. The Starclimber shuddered and the Time Rotor strained as the ship was ripped from Torrent's frantic efforts to control it. The hull banked to the right as it was subjected to a new course. In one last act of rebellion, Torrent threw a switch he'd never used before - "Emergency Temporal Shift". Purple flecks surrounded the ship, and the Starclimber boosted to safety.

Unfortunately, this also boosted them to the edge of the tunnellike portal.

The Starclimber fell out of the Time Vortex into a world remarkably like Earth. Cogs, noticing the lack of headache and change of ambient light, walked up to the windshield. A grand continent spread out before them, the north half covered in trees, fields, and cities, the south half a great desert, bearing its share of cities as well. The Starclimber pitched nose down, going at terminal velocity, as Torrent frantically tried to pull up. When the ship had slowed enough, Torrent successfully pulled up, the Starclimber's wings coming within metres of hitting the desert ground. Torrent landed the Starclimber near the nearest city, on a small landing pad next to what looked like a big, wood-and-copper blimp, and extended the boarding ramp as dusk fell. Cogs walked down the ramp, looking around at the sandstone buildings. The architecture was similar to that of stereotypical sandstone buildings in Egypt or the Middle East. He pulled his teal jacket around his shoulders and rubbed his watch for good luck, and started into the streets. Torrent, reminiscing in the cool twilight air, followed soon after. The city was bustling, people going this way and that, carry all manner of goods through the sandstone-paved streets, conversing in an unfamiliar, Middle Eastern-sounding tongue. The newcomers occasionally passed soldiers armed with what looked like Second World War-era rifles with bayonets strapped onto them, but otherwise took little notice of the various people crowding the busy street.

"Various people here seem to have some similar clothing and tattoo designs," Cogs said, glancing at a man with a grey-and-white tattoo on his face.

"Maybe it's some sort of social ranking system?" Torrent asked.

"Maybe. For now, let's try to get our bearings and see what caused that assault on the Starclimber."

-\\_/-

The iron ball sat in the centre of the summoning circle, and didn't move.

Crake had been in his workshop all day, trying to find the source of a phantom upper-range frequency that his instruments had picked up. At first, he'd thought it was a technical problem, but he'd run an equipment check and everything was working fine. He had thralled a small daemon to the ball to find the strange frequency, but the high-pitched sound wave had seemingly disappeared from his instruments' range. Sitting at his desk, he put his forehead into his hands and groaned.

"I can't work under these conditions..." he complained. Bess, Crake's chainmail-and-steel golem, stirred in her corner of Crake's sanctum, as if she thought Crake was addressing her. When no reply came from the blonde daemonist, she slumped back into her usual inert position.

The daemon Crake had thralled to the ball was a simple tracker, nothing more, and had been bombarded with the frequency that Crake was interested in, but it would not move. The frequency was gone. Crake closed his daemonism book, and resigned the problem to tomorrow, when the cargo ramp opened. The iron ball, to Crake's amazement, started rolling from the sanctum, straight towards Captain Frey, who was returning from his business with Trinica Dracken, the legendary pirate of Vardian skies, who had come to Samarla to avoid the tension between the Awakeners, a religion that tried to turn the mad writings of a long-gone king into the holy texts written by a messiah, and the Coalition, the Vardian government headed by the Archduke. The iron ball continued rolling towards the Cap'n, and was continually bumping him in the foot when Crake followed it, and the cargo bay door hissed shut, closing off the hold of the Ketty Jay from the twilight outside.

Frey, however, didn't seem to notice Crake or the ball, but instead walked slowly towards a spare tarp that was tied down on the port side of the hold. Crake watched as Frey drew his revolver, and stared at the bundle of tarp, his face showing raw fear. The iron ball, knocked further away from Frey than it could go under its own power by Frey's boot heel, rolled up to Frey's boot once again. Frey, this time noticing the stronger impact on his heel, snapped around, bringing up his revolver until it was straight up in Crake's face.

"Don't shoot! It's me! It's me!"

Frey blinked, apparently surprised that Crake was right behind him, and slowly looked over his shoulder.

"Crake," he said, turning back to Crake, "I think I might be going mad."

"What worries me, Cap'n," Crake said, "is that you might not be."

-/|\\-

Cogs and Torrent continued walking through the streets, finally settling on what they could only guess was a map stand. Having no legal currency, they resorted to trying to ask the vendor for information, but he only laughed and muttered something under his breath. That is, until he realized they were serious, in which case he filled them in in heavily accented English.

(A/N: Cogs is repeating to me what he said, it's pretty much what's next, once you successfully insert the proper words and remove the accent.)

"How can you not know where you are? This is the middle of the Free Trade Zone in Samarla."

Cogs turned to Torrent, and started walking back towards the Starclimber.

"Well, at least we know roughly where we are now," he said to Torrent, who followed beside him. They walked through the streets in the young night, wrought-iron gas lamps dimly lighting the still-bustling city streets.

"Like that vendor said, we're in Samarla, which is a country that consists mostly of desert and areas restricted to Vardians from the north of the continent." Cogs explained to Torrent.

"What? In English, please?" Torrent asked.

"We're in the universe of the Ketty Jay series, which is possible because sometimes the void between universes - which we've been flying the Starclimber through - sometimes thins a little, so flashes of each universe creep into the other through fiction and dreams. It's why alternate-timeline fiction is so popular."

Cogs turned one last corner, and came into sight of the landing pad.

-\\_/-

Crake took a sip of coffee, and continued scanning his instruments. He tuned a few knobs on his pansonic-emission waveform visualizer, and wrote a few formulae into his notebook, making mental notes of what they could mean. That is, until he saw the last frequency on the visualizer, and stopped. It was a lower frequency, right outside the range of human detection, and pulsating in volume, and slightly in pitch, regularly. What had made Crake pause was that it shouldn't be here. He'd made a note of all of the Ketty Jay's background frequencies for calibration and recalibration when he'd come on board, but this wasn't something he'd picked up the first time, nor was it the frequency Crake had found emanating from Frey.

"Cap'n," Crake said, "We may have to put this off until later."

Crake looked around the sanctum, and grabbed an iron rod that he had lying around for something like this. With a small daemon thralled to it, Crake needed only to douse the rod in the frequency like he did with the ball. The only reason why he couldn't use the ball was that this frequency, unlike most daemon frequencies, was irregular, and so required a daemon of slightly higher intelligence. He ushered the Cap'n out of the summoning circle, where most of Crake's work was done, and placed the iron rod in Frey's stead. He did an equipment check to make sure everything was working, and set the frequency cannon's subsonic waveform emitter to the mystery frequency. He performed one last equipment check, as it was never a bad idea to have working equipment, and flipped a switch. The summoning circle remained silent, except for the soft humming of Crake's equipment, and the rod was visibly vibrating in harmony with the mystery frequency. The pansonic-emission waveform visualizer was going crazy in the lower range, and Crake smiled as the daemon in the rod eventually reached unison, and shut the frequency cannon off. Once everything had shut down, he retrieved the rod from the summoning circle. The daemon in the rod pointed his mind in the direction of the mystery frequency, and Crake followed its advice, the Cap'n following close behind. They opened the Ketty Jay's cargo hatch, and walked out into the darkness beyond.


	24. A Daemonic Conundrum, Part 2

Sonar Equipment - Migraines - On the Subject of What's a Daemon - Vacancies

Cogs and Torrent were walking out onto the landing pad when the hydraulic boarding ramp on the airship next to the Starclimber hissed open, and two men walked out. One carried a pair of revolvers and a cutlass under his belt underneath a blue trench coat, the other wore a green suit and carried a small metal rod. Suspecting nothing, Cogs and Torrent continued walking, and were halfway across the landing pad when the man in the green suit turned around, and called out to Cogs.  
"Excuse me, sir," the man said, "but may I have a moment of your time?"  
"And what is a kid like you doing here? This is a place for grownups only," the other man in the blue coat said.  
"Well," Cogs said, "Sure, do whatever, and considering I'm not from around here, you'd probably be surprised to learn that I'm roughly seven hundred and fifty years old."  
The man in the blue coat blinked, taken aback, while the man in the green suit extended his hand to the pair.  
"The name's Crake," the man said, shaking hands with the two Jacks, "and this is... Well, you've probably seen who this is..."  
Cogs and Torrent glanced at each other, their faces remaining ones of calm confidence.  
"Well?" Cogs said, "Should I be realizing something?"  
Crake looked like he thought Cogs was stupid. "This is-"  
Crake was stopped in his tracks by the man in the blue trench coat, frowning as if Cogs was a piece of gum on the bottom of his boot. "Darian Frey, captain of the Ketty Jay. How can you not know me by sight? If you know who I am, then you've read the papers and seen the ferrotypes."  
"Ferrotypes?" Torrent whispered to Cogs.  
"Photographs."  
Crake interrupted before Cogs could speak further. "We're here because there's interference with my... er..."  
"Sonar equipment," Frey said.  
"Yes! Sonar equipment! There's interference with my sonar equipment, and my instruments point to you being the source of the interference."  
"Well, how could I be causing interference? I'm just a normal person doing normal person things." Cogs said, motioning for Torrent to be careful with whatever happens next.  
"My sonar interference detector," Crake said, holding up his metal rod, "says that you are the cause of the frequency. As solving the problem requires lots of heavy, secret sonar equipment," Crake said with a very showy tone which Cogs suspected was just to cover up the fact that Crake wasn't telling him the whole truth, "please come with me to Captain Frey's kindly volunteered ship."  
Cogs rolled his eyes, facepalming at how obviously faked that sounded, and agreed to follow Crake. Torrent, caught somewhere he didn't want to be, walked over to one of the landing struts of the ship, which Frey had insisted was called the Ketty Jay. Cogs instead walked up the boarding ramp with Crake and Frey, the former leading him to a partitioned area in the hold and the latter eyeing him as if he was going to kill Crake and run, which Cogs wasn't going to do. Crake pointed Cogs to the middle of a chalk circle drawn on the floor, and Cogs stepped in. Crake dashed over to some sort of scanner, and nodded to the five poles set up in a pixel-perfect pentagon.  
"Stand in the direct centre of that, please," he said, twiddling a few knobs. Eventually, he flicked a switch, and Cogs felt another headache start to form, and closed his eyes. Crake slowly adjusted a dial lever, and the headache got worse until it made Cogs' eyes water. Crake, meanwhile, stood at the controls in awe. The crystal pendant the stranger had been wearing was starting to glow, and brightly at that. Crake looked at Frey nervously, and started to reach for the shutoff when he heard the stranger speak.  
"Is the migraine normal?"  
Crake swallowed and uttered a shaky reply.  
"No..."  
The stranger started to squirm where he was, and his necklace glowed bright enough to stand in for an electric lamp.  
"Turn it off, Crake!" Frey shouted, covering his eyes. Crake glanced over all of his instruments, and was astonished when the pansonic-emission waveform visualizer showed new frequencies emerging, one by one, to make a strange dissonance on the edge of hearing, one that sent chills down Crake's spine. Crake quickly jotted the frequencies down, and shut off the frequency cannon. Almost at once, the crystal stopped glowing and dimmed down to normal. Cogs rubbed his eyes, thankful that the migraines were fading. He turned to Crake, somewhat annoyed.  
"What were you doing? Does it look like I'm a daemon to you?"  
Crake's expression turned into one of mortification. "What? I- I'm not a daemonist! This - is just-"  
"Sonar equipment, yeah," Cogs said, equal parts tired and sarcastic. "Sonar is a remote detection system, designed to be rigged to the outside of a ship, not the inside."  
"Then answer me this, if you're so smart. Why is my scanner picking up a strange frequency, coming from you," Crake accused, pointing to Cogs, "if you're not a daemon?"  
Cogs, for once, was unsure of what to say, and remained silent, trying to think of something to say that would give Crake the slip.  
"Aha! You can't think of an excuse, because you're a DAEMON!" Crake shouted. "I've got you now! Prepare to meet the full daemon-hunting wrath of my scientific knowledge-"  
Crake was interrupted as Frey walked up and slapped him.  
"Thanks," Crake said, his train of thought stopped in its tracks, "I needed that." He raised one finger, then continued speaking. "If you're a daemon, how are you here? Are you possessing someone?"  
"I told you before, I'm not a daemon! I'm just a normal person who was thrown into a crazy chain of events!"  
"Welcome to the club," Frey said.  
"Anyway, I'm Jack, but you can call me Cogs. My companion, who you probably didn't notice looks almost exactly like me, is also Jack, but another crazy sequence of events led him to nicknaming himself Torrent."  
"That leads to another question... Cogs," Frey said, "Why are you here?"  
"You've seen Torrent's ship, the big, black boxy one next to the Ketty Jay?"  
"Yeah."  
"We ran into some interference with the controls roughly..." Cogs ran to the boarding ramp. "Torrent! Time jump measure! Now!"  
Torrent, leaning on one of the landing struts of the Ketty Jay, took out his screwdriver and scanned the Starclimber.  
"About a year back. Why?" was his response.  
Cogs chose not to answer that question and continued his conversation. "Anyway, we ran into some problems about a year in the future, and emergency time-jumped here. We can't go back to that era, the interference will make us crash and probably kill both of us. So, we need somewhere to stay like this for about a year. Do you have any vacancies on your mighty fine ship, Captain Frey?"  
"None actually on the ship that I can recall other than backup dorsal gunner, but we could always use more outflyers."  
Cogs walked down the boarding ramp. "Torrent, whaddaya think about signing on as outflyers of the Ketty Jay until we find and deal with whatever's causing our problem in the future?"  
"I don't see why not. I'm assuming by outflyer, you mean I'll have to orbit their ship if anything gets explodey?"  
"Yep."  
Cogs turned back to Frey. "That's a yes from both of us. Mister Frey... Or should I say, CAPTAIN Frey, you've just got yourself two new outflyers and one backup gunner!"  
As Cogs told Torrent to collect the Starclimber, and boarded the Ketty Jay to look for somewhere to hole up, Crake turned to Frey.  
"Two outflyers? But... they've only got one ship..."  
Frey scowled at the back of Cogs' head as the new subordinate explored the ship. "There's something he's not telling us..."


	25. A Daemonic Conundrum, Part 3

The Quarry - Ambush - PTSD - Cogs' Secret

The air rumbled with the distant sounds of cannon fire. Thick, sickly-yellow smog surrounded the crew of the Ketty Jay - Frey, the captain, Jezabeth, the navigator, Malvery, the ship's doctor and dorsal gunner, Crake, the daemonist, Pinn and Harkins, the two original outflyers, Ashua, the stray scooped up by circumstance, and Cogs and Torrent, who maintained that they were two outflyers, but everyone knew they were really just trying to keep up appearances with their ship, and really worked together as one. Silo, the engineer, was off near the Samarlans' slave pens, trying to free his people, who were forced into slavery by the Samarlans. The crew descended further into the Gagriisk quarry, wearing goggles and breathing masks, having been told there was a man there, from the far north of Yortland, who knew where the origin of the Iron Jackal was. The Iron Jackal was the daemon tracking Frey - Once Crake had calibrated for Cogs' presence on board, he'd found the daemon easily. They had gone to a sorcerer, who told them that they had until the full moon to return an artefact that Frey had touched, marking him for the Iron Jackal. The crew descended further into the deathpit, scanning the surroundings for Dakkadian troops, the Samarlans' grunts. Jez was leading, as her senses were better than anyone else's - and Cogs, with a dragon's sharp vision and hearing, followed up behind her. They were roughly halfway down the tiered quarry, and looking for the next level down, when Jez held a hand up, signalling for the crew to stop.

"What is it?" Frey asked. The various heavy machinery scattered around the tier intimidated him.  
Cogs nudged Torrent, nodding to him through his goggles. Both Jacks readied their weapons, Cogs his revolvers, Torrent his rifle. Cogs started to peer into the smog twitchily, fearful of what lay hidden.  
"Not sure," Jez said. "Hard to tell where the sounds are coming from." She paused for a while, listening. Cogs cocked his revolvers, and tok a deep, shaky breath. Torrent turned around, advancing to Cogs' back. The rest of the crew readied their weapons, loading any empty chambers.  
Jez looked at Frey. "I think they know where we-"  
Jez didn't get to finish that sentence as bullets started pinging off of the ground, the machinery and Bess, Crake's golem. The crew of the Ketty Jay started returning fire through the fog, revolvers reaching crazy firing rates while hammers were fanned. Suddenly, a bunch of floodlights on a bulldozer popped on, blinding the crew of the Ketty Jay. Nobody could see anything, so they just took cover behind Bess and the bulldozer's scoop, returning fire when they could. Even Crake and Harkins, the two worst shots on the Ketty Jay, were firing back periodically. Torrent reloaded his rifle, hiding behind Bess, as he saw Pinn put some of his Flame-Slime - a sort of incendiary gel he'd invented without knowing the recipe - onto his revolver ammo. The first bullet fired acted like tracer ammo, but it had the unfortunate side effect of setting the revolver on fire. Pinn, scared out of his wits, threw his revolver to the ground, where it discharged from the impact and the fire. It hit Pinn in the cast, which sat around his arm. He'd burned it while demonstrating his Flame-Slime to the crew by setting his arm on fire.  
"Right in the same bloody spot," Pinn said, right before fainting. Malvery ran over, muttering curses, and started to bandage up the wound to hold until they got back to the ship.  
"He'll be fine, but not flying," was Malvery's diagnosis.  
The bulldozer rumbled to life now, starting to advance on the crew.  
"Great," Frey said.  
"Between a rock and a hard place," Torrent said, checking on Cogs. The Dragonheart was sitting behind the bulldozer's scoop, breathing heavily. He was whispering something to himself, and Torrent thought he saw a pair of wings start to poke out from behind the long teal coat. Torrent fired a short volley into the fog, and ran from behind Bess to the slowly advancing bulldozer.  
"Hey, you alright?" Torrent asked, nudging Cogs.  
"If you haven't noticed, we are in a deathpit surrounded by more death, with death joining the death originally in the deathpit. DO YOU THINK I'M ALRIGHT?!" Cogs curled up into a fetal position. "We're about to die soon, and all of our friends here, too..." He stopped addressing Torrent then, and continued repeating "this isn't happening" as the firefight continued around him.  
Torrent decided to cut to the chase as Jez switched gears from human to Mane - It was scary to watch, as Jez threw down her gun and blitzed into the darkness on all fours to tear a few throats out, scaring Harkins witless in the process.  
"We'll all die only if you let us! You're the only one strong enough to move that bulldozer!"  
Cogs glanced up, his eyes brimming with tears from his resignation to death. He stood up, his half-dragon form now clearly out for all to see, stunning the Ketty Jay's crew, and pushed up solo against the bulldozer, and started to shift into his dragon form. As he gradually made the switch, he changed from using his arms - at this point his forelegs - to his horns and skull, digging all four claws into the ground. His scales, scarred from seven hundred years of abuse, either deflected the bullets or were too thick or resistant to penetrate.  
"By the Archduke's beard," Frey said, "He really was a daemon..."  
Crake only watched in stunned silence, while the rest of the crew, though distraught, continued firing back, occasionally using Cogs as cover, as Cogs pushed the bulldozer back a few centimetres. Cogs pushed relentlessly, switching to his forelegs, and bellowed at the remaining Dakkadians.  
"Whatever happens now..." he said, his voice deepened from size, "I will not let my friends die... least of all... by the likes of you!" He pushed in one colossal burst of energy, and the bulldozer slid backwards. Cogs lifted the bulldozer off of the ground using a burst of adrenaline, and placed it on the tier above. Fighting to keep it under control, he swivelled it around to illuminate a squad of terrified Dakkadian marksmen. He fired a portion of the quarry wall, toppling it onto the path.  
"In sovyit Rrusha, bulldozer drive YOU!" he said, grinning evilly. He released the bulldozer, which careened into the guards, pushing them off the ledge.  
That was how it could have happened.  
But it wasn't.  
"I will not let my friends die..." Cogs said, "Least of all... by the likes of you!" He packed his rage up, and unleashed a long stream of blue flame, at least a hundred degrees hotter than normal. While this set a few Dakkadians on fire, it also illuminated Cogs' face for anyone in the battle to shoot at. Several shots penetrated the upper portion of Cogs' face, weakening him to the point of letting the bulldozer continue. Barely aware, Cogs gradually changed back to his half-dragon form, necessitating Torrent to drag him along as the crew retreated from the bulldozer. Torrent grabbed one of Cogs' revolvers, and more out of panic at seeing his friend hurt than anything else fired blindly into the foggy darkness. The crew, minus Jez, were retreating behind the bulldozer. They were nearly pushed off of the edge when the bulldozer shut down, and Jez walked up out of the darkness, covered in blood. With her came an absence of gunshots, the only sound being her footsteps and the thunder of an anti-aircraft gun firing at the Delirium Trigger somewhere above. She reached the crew of the Ketty Jay, then passed out right there. Malvery sighed, and got Crake to help him carry Cogs and Jez to the Ketty Jay's infirmary, with Ashua escorting them in case Silo and the Murthians hadn't taken over by the time Malvery got out of the quarry. Torrent and Frey, the last ones left, proceeded to the bottom of the quarry. The pair walked up to a steel door, obviously an airlock to the prison. Torrent tried to open it, but Frey held it shut.  
"First, let's get a few things out of the way. I make it a policy to not pry into people's pasts on the Ketty Jay, but this warrants an exception. What. The hell. Was THAT?!" Frey said, pointing to the bulldozer.  
"The simplest explanation I can give you at the moment is that it's magic from another dimension. Ask Cogs later if that isn't enough."  
Torrent tried again to open the door, but Frey did not relent.  
"Captain, if I knew the whole story, I'd tell you. Trust me."  
Experience told Frey that when either Jack got overly formal, he wasn't lying. His gut told him that this was one of those times, however far-fetched it seemed.  
"Any other huge secrets?"  
"I can do it, too, through a different method. I'll show you later."  
Frey let go of the airlock door, and Torrent opened it, holding it for his captain. Once inside, it was easy to find the prisoner they'd come for, as he was the only Yort in the building. Upon freeing him, Frey took an immediate dislike to him, diagnosing that he was probably crazy. Torrent, Frey and the Yort, Ugrik, left through the airlock, to rendezvous with the rest of the crew in the Ketty Jay and plan their next move.


	26. A Daemonic Conundrum, Part 4

All was quiet in the cabin as the Ketty Jay snuck into Samarlan airspace to reach the Azryx city Ugrik had shown the Ketty Jay's crew on the map. Since Jez was out of commission for the time being until she recovered from her injuries and her Mane flip, Cogs was navigating through the Samaritan desert. Torrent flew around the Ketty Jay in his dragon form, as the Starclimber would have attracted too much attention and generated too much light and sound. The Ketty Jay itself made almost no noise or light as the engines and all the lighting in the cabins were off, save for Cogs, who breathed a candle-sized light for him to see clearly. Other than that, the moon was bright, making easy short-term navigation for Frey. One of the cabin's double doors slid open, and Crake walked in.

"Any word on the destination, Cap'n?"

It was not Frey, but Cogs who responded. "Ugrik only said that we'd know when we're close."

Frey motioned to Cogs, indicating that it was as good as his guess. He continued to try to uncover the secrets of the nothing that lay on the bridge of his nose. Crake could guess what it was that was causing the Cap'n's depressed behaviour, and it probably wouldn't be far off.

"I've got some good news and some bad news." Crake said to Frey.

"What's the good news?" he said sullenly.

"I've been working on a few gadgets based off of your first field test of the concealment sphere back in the Free Trade Zone - a rather brave one, if I say so - and I've come up with a few techniques that could prove effective in the field, should the worst-case scenario happen."

"Thank you, by the way, for that device. Saved my life. You've been working flat out for me all this time. I appreciate it," Frey said, with about as much lacklustre as was possible in a human voice.

"You're welcome," was Crake's response.

"Bad news now," Frey said.

"Ah, yes, the bad news..." Crake paused. "Have you heard of a harmonic resonance bounce?"

Frey gave Crake acid, while Cogs looked on with interest.

"Moot question, maybe... You remember that ring I gave you a while back that was linked to a compass?"

Frey held up his hand, showing Crake the ring.

"Oh... Cap'n... I'm so sorr-"

"Crake, buy me a drink if I survive this, okay? And you were saying?"

"Anyway." Crake went into a very complex explanation of how the ring and compass worked, which Cogs was enthralled by, but Frey cut it short.

"Layman's terms, Crake," he said, getting slightly annoyed.

"Someone's tracking the relic."

"There, now, that wasn't so hard."

Crake paused again. "It's like the ring and compass, but, I hate to admit, more advanced. But the point is, someone's tracking where the relic is."

Crake, Frey, and Cogs all knew that only daemonists could do that kind of thing, but not who. No daemonists that the crew had met had been anywhere near the relic.

Cogs turned back to his map, and looked out of the cockpit windshield. He looked at the local landmarks, then compared it to his map. He put down the map, and stopped the flame. Frey was asking Crake about blocking the signal when the ship shuddered, violent enough to make Crake stumble and the other two grab onto something for balance.

"What was that...?" Cogs asked, a fearful whine coming into his voice.

"Turbulence, probably," Frey said.

The Ketty Jay rumbled again. Then it was shaken, hard, sending anything not screwed down flying to the starboard side of the room as the Ketty Jay listed hard. Cogs, holding onto the navigation table for balance, felt an irregular pulse to the normally stable rumble of the Ketty Jay's engines. He raced to the cockpit window, then took a deep breath. Focusing hard, he breathed a medium-sized flame, careful not to burn the Ketty Jay. He pulsed it orange and blue, then pulsed blue and orange. Outside, three bio-green flashes from Torrent's bioluminescent stripes responded, and the Ketty Jay gradually righted, straining as the engines stuttered. However hard Torrent tried, though, a high-pitched whine cut the air, slowly ascending.

"He can't keep it up!" Frey shouted.

"I'll go warn the others!" Cogs said, running out the door.

Crake didn't know what to do, so he just grabbed onto the back of the captain's chair.

Cogs ran through the corridors, screaming "BRACE FOR IMPACT!". When he was sure that the whole ship had heard his warning at least twice, he opened the back cargo hatch, changing into a dragon as the hydraulics hissed open. He clambered out on the right, once more tilting the ship, but not as sharp as when it was unaided. He closed the cargo hatch using the outside keypad, and let go when it was closed. He flew up to where Torrent was straining on the forward-starboard part of the ship. Cogs grabbed the aft-port side and started lifting. It was heavy work, but it had to be done to keep the Kitty Jay from crashing while its internal systems went haywire. Except, it wasn't good enough. The crash whine continued ascending, and the ship's belly started to glance off of the ground. Cogs flapped his wings harder, trying to generate more lift that would keep the Ketty Jay up in the air. The ship was just too heavy, though. It plowed into the ground, cutting a huge ditch as it did so. Cogs and Torrent were thrown forwards, and they landed on the ground in front of the Ketty Jay. Cogs and Torrent switched back to their human forms.

"What do we do now?" Torrent thought aloud.

"We hold the fort. We were trying to make this journey on stealth, so we try to make sure the wreck isn't seen. Wait for someone to try to assert what's going on... That kinda thing."

And so they sat, one watching the environment, one checking the ship for problems or casualties.


	27. A Daemonic Conundrum, Part 5

"Wake up!"  
Cogs snapped awake, then squinted at Torrent as his eyes refocused. He looked around where he had fallen asleep: Outside the door of the engine room. Cogs looked to Torrent, still half asleep. "What?"  
"Frey and Ugrik are gone."  
"Where?"  
"Off into the desert. It's still night, so that's a plus, but dawn will come soon. We need to find them before they die."  
"Just let me sleep... I haven't slept this well for roughly 50 years..."  
"Come on, get UP! You can sleep later! I'll assemble a search party."  
Half an hour later, everyone was following Frey's tracks into the barren wasteland, with Silo leading as the first mate of the Ketty Jay. Cogs was trudging along, groggy, while Pinn whined about his arm. Otherwise, nobody said anything. Torrent personally preferred the almost-silence. Dawn broke as the crew reached the top of a particularly large sand dune, providing a stunning view of a sandstone ant colony. Little ants wound around the various dilapidated structures, ringing a giant hourglass-like structure filled with coloured smoke. Tiny jeeps came and went from the hourglass, and supplies were stacked around the hourglass' base. Dawn broke as the crew of the Ketty Jay, minus Frey, started down the sand dune, into the ancient ruin below.  
Frey and Ugrik were walking through the streets of the Azryx ruin, taking care not to make any noise. Ugrik was leading Frey through the maze of streets, heading towards a citadel dwarfed by the giant hourglass. They hadn't run into any Samarlan soldiers so far, and Frey had his fingers crossed for the rest of the journey. That is, until Frey and Ugrik turned a corner and nearly walked straight into two Samarlan soldiers, patrolling the city. They raised their rifles, and were about to raise the alarm when a familiar voice said "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Frey looked up to the nearby rooftops, and saw Ashua and the rest of the crew, pointing various guns at the Samarlan troops. After tying up the guards, Frey greeted the rest of the crew. They had saved his life, after all. While Frey, Crake, Torrent, and Ugrik left to deal with the Iron Jackal, Cogs, Ashua, Malvery, Harkins, Pinn, and Silo left to investigate the giant hourglass.

-/|\\-

Frey reached the giant room first. It was a large circular atrium, constructed out of stone bricks, lined with beds and what looked like small computers to Torrent. They, along with Crake and Ugrik, ran though the hall, trying to find where the artifact that Frey carried had to be returned to. They eventually found it in a small closet-like space, but the pedestal was damaged beyond repair. Frey was just about to turn around and head home when he heard a low growl from the atrium outside. The others must have heard it too, because they turned around with the same slow, hopeful horror that had struck Frey.  
"Is that...?" Torrent started.  
"The Iron Jackal," Crake finished.  
"Well, great..." Frey said, clearly showing his thoughts on how deep the daemonic excrement they were in was.  
That left Torrent, Frey, Crake, Ugrik, and a murderous daemon.  
Running out into the atrium, Crake started hastily setting up a small plane-crossing circle, rigging it with frequency cannons designed to rip the Iron Jackal apart - or, more accurately, shove it back to the 7th plane - the daemon realm. He handed Frey and Ugrik a pair of handheld frequency cannons, designed to bring the Iron Jackal under control, much like a Proton Pack. Crake had only just finished setting up when-  
Grrrrh.  
A spine-tingling feeling of paranoia crept through the three crewmembers and Ugrik.  
The Iron Jackal was here.

-\|/-

Cogs and Malvery ran more or less side-by-side as Silo led them to the hourglass' base. Now that they were up close, they could see a maintenance hatch at the bottom. Keeping together, they infiltrated the compound and had Cogs blow the door open.  
Ten minutes later, they ran out of the hourglass as it imploded, taking its various maintenance drones with it, and a great automaton rose in its place.

-/|\\-

Frey and Ugrik had the Iron Jackal under control in a frequency cage and were dragging the daemon towards Crake's circle. However hard they tried, through, the Iron Jackal still wailed against the invisible sound barriers. Through immense coordination, they dragged it over to Crake's circle, and were nearly there when-  
"Uh-oh..."  
The battery failed in Ugrik's frequency cannon. The Iron Jackal nearly escaped, but a new sound barrier formed, restricting it. To Frey, it didn't sound like a frequency cannon. He risked a glance towards the noise, and saw Torrent holding out a small metal wand that was lighting up green at one end. The wand was what was making the noise, without a doubt, and it was doing surprisingly well holding the Iron Jackal in. Every bash against the sonic cage still caused Torrent to recoil, but the device Torrent had still held up against the daemon's efforts. Frey and Torrent concerted their efforts, and led the Iron Jackal to Crake's circle. With the Iron Jackal inside the circle, Crake unleashed a sound barrage that caused the Iron Jackal to writhe in pain. Frey squinted against the sound, and when he looked at the daemon again, it was Trinica, his crush and captain of the Delirium Trigger. She was wearing a leather jacket and canvas pants, and her optical-illusion contact lenses made her pupils look huge.  
"Help me," the daemon Trinica said in a hoarse whisper.  
Frey hesitated, clearly trying to decide whether to kill this Trinica. He passed his frequency cannon to Ugrik, and walked up to the Iron Jackal.  
"Wrong Trinica," he said, drawing his cutlass and plunging it into the fake Trinica's chest.


	28. A Daemonic Conundrum, Part 6

Torrent, Frey, Crake, and Ugrik blitzed out of the atrium as terrific rumbing shook the entire Azryx city. They darted through streets and side alleys, a wish for haste accelerating into pure terror as a great automaton rose out of a crumbling hourglass. Twice they had to reverse direction as the automaton strode around the ruins or obliterated what were presumably Samarlan squads with a gargantuan plasma cannon.  
"It's - huff - like - huff - a game - huff - of Pac Man!" Torrent said to nobody in particular, panting as he ran.

-\|/-

Cogs' group was the first to reach the Ketty Jay, flown in just then, as the automaton rampaged around the hidden city. The airship's cargo ramp was already open when it landed and the group rushed in. Turning around when he heard that Frey hadn't returned, Cogs scanned the streets, adrenaline rising as the automaton's blasts drew ever closer to the idling airship.  
"Over there!"  
Indeed, Frey, Crake, Torrent, and Ugrik bolted around a corner and sprinted over to the Ketty Jay, automaton in tow. When Torrent reached the LZ, he rolled over and kept sprinting in a manner not unlike roll-dodging in the Legend of Zelda. The three crewmates and one passenger blitzed into the Ketty Jay's cargo hatch, Frey hammering the controls to close the cargo doors.  
"Who's flying this thing?" Frey questioned to nobody in particular, breathless from running full-tilt.  
An awkward silence pervaded the crew, during which Cogs kept searching for a window. Torrent pitched in after about two minutes.  
"Maybe it's Jez? She was the last one on the Ketty Jay."  
As Cogs gave up the search, various crew members drew various weaponry and started to search the ship. The ship rocked distressingly as the automaton's blasts landed near the ship. Upon reaching the cockpit door, Frey and Crake took aim, and opened the door to the cockpit.  
"Hello, Cap'n," was the reply as Frey was stunned speechless at the sight of Jez at the controls of the Ketty Jay.

-\|/-

A sense of relief had calmed everyone when Frey announced Jez' recovery. The Ketty Jay departed the LZ, and none too soon, as a plasma blast eviscerated the intersection the Ketty Jay had landed at. The automaton followed the Ketty Jay, each plasma blast coming alarmingly close.  
"Come on, I can take it! Besides, even if I lose, I can turn tail and fly away, or draw its attention away from you!" Cogs argued to Frey.  
"No! It's dangerous enough as it is!"  
Cogs opened the cargo hatch regardless, only to see the automaton following them as the Ketty Jay started away from the Azryx city. Cogs dragonshifted, and dove out of the cargo hatch.  
A frantic battle ensued worthy of any Peter Jackson movie or ScrewAttack Death Battle, mostly consisting of Cogs dodging around the automaton's plasma cannon, scrabbling at its weak spots and making a gouge in the metal here and there. The automaton blasted its cannon wildly, but Cogs dodged every bolt, responding with a handful of fireballs. One such fireball went into the mouth of the cannon as it charged, detonating the reactor and blowing the automaton's head to bits, leaving a scarred city, the automaton dead in the crater it made from the impact velocity, and Cogs flying back to the Ketty Jay, astounded by his luck.  
Frey looked unsure whether to hug or crotch-kick Cogs as the dragon landed in the hangar and shifted back to his human form.  
"The hell were you thinking?!"  
"I could take it down, and I did. Did you see it?"  
Frey sighed. "Yes... You're a lot stronger than you look."  
"Just glad I could help."  
Frey smiled. "C'mon. Let's get outta here."  
The Ketty Jay flew off into the sunset, towards the Free Trade Zone and shelter.


	29. A Daemonic Conundrum, Part 7

Thesk was burning.  
And not big chunks of it here and there, no, the entire city - every single one of its buildings - was on fire at one place or another. The air filled with smoke, the dark grey clouds above Vardia's capital city not helping visibility. Rumbling could be heard above the streets, not from thunder, but from volleys of cannonfire issuing between the Awakener uprising and Vardic navy.  
The Ketty Jay flew towards Trinica Dracken's ship, the Delirium Trigger, the Awakener flagship. Accompanying Frey in the Ketty Jay were Crake and Torrent. Malvery, Silo, and Ashua battled it out against the Awakeners on the ground alongside the Vardic ground forces. Last of all, Cogs flew in the Starclimber alongside the Ketty Jay as an escort.  
The streets were chaotic with the Vardic army and golem battalion as Malvery and Ashua raced towards an anti-aircraft battery emplacement behind a couple of golems, who were acting as bullet sponges against the defensive machineguns.  
"You ready to crack some skulls?" Ashua said, checking her revolver.  
"What are you gonna say if I don't answer?" Malvery primed his shotgun as he said so. "We're not gonna crack skulls. At this range, we'll probably blow 'em wide open," he said to Ashua's smirk.  
Ashua counted down to start firing. When she reached one, the machinegun stopped and didn't start up again. Peeking out, all they could see of the gun's operator was a pair of hands.  
"Damn," Ashua cursed, looking behind her. "The Century Knight sniper's got one hell of an aim."  
"Hell'll come to Earth before I miss this chance to not fight," Malvery said. "Though all things considered, it probably has already." Looking up, Ashua silently agreed with him as she saw the newly-arrived Samarlan air force and navy start to fire on the Vardic battleships above. Taking note of this, Ashua and Malvery led the charge, helping a handful of Vardic soldiers capture and use the AA battery.  
Silo watched as the first battery changed targets and hands as the Samarlans arrived, and advanced further down the road towards the second Awakener-held battery. Halfway there, a large car-like vehicle with caterpillar treads and an aircraft-grade cannon busted through a wall, leaving Silo and the small platoon to duck under cover, sporadically firing their various weaponry at it in vain. He crossed his fingers for a miracle.  
Cogs flew between the various controls of the Starclimber, wondering how Torrent ever flew it in a hectic battle before. He circled the Ketty Jay, covering its backside while it hooked up to the Delirium Trigger's deck. As Torrent, Crake, and Frey disembarked with the Vardic troops, Cogs left, to cause chaos and discord among the Awakeners.  
Harkins weaved through the Awakener armada as he pursued Pinn's fighter through the battleships. He didn't want to do this, but Pinn had converted to the Awakeners as the Ketty Jay had left for Thesk. He got a great chance as Pinn made one mistake - stood still in his sights - triggers - guns - hit - fire - falling - and Pinn's fighter burst into flames and fell towards Thesk, far below. The falling fighter nearly hit Cogs - at which the half-dragon expressed his displeasure - and it was about then that the full reality of the situation hit Harkins. The result left him screaming.  
"NO, PINN, I'M SO SORRY!"  
"Sorry about what?" Was Pinn's reply through the enthralled comms earcuffs.  
"Wha - but - I SHOT YOU DOWN!" Came Harkins' shaky, stuttery disbelief.  
"No, I'm right behind you. Right before the Awakeners left, they shuffled everyone's fighters! I'm OK!"  
Harkins looked behind him, and sure enough, there was Pinn, grinning stupidly at him from the fighter on his right wing.  
As Cogs did another assault run, a fighter jet screaming towards the ground made him roll to avoid getting nailed.  
"OY, WATCH IT!" he shouted in the general direction of whoever was above him, while scrambling to correct his roll. By some fluke, he glanced outside and saw a tank similar to a KV-2 with an Awakener sigil on it harassing a platoon of Vardic soldiers.  
"Oh...!"  
Flying low, he set a course and switched to cannon controls.  
Honestly, the design of this sucks, Cogs thought as he input the firing angle. How Torrent does this is beyond me.  
Sure enough, the plasma cannons hit their mark and burned straight through it, but as Cogs turned back to the flight controls, they stopped responding and started going haywire. As Cogs struggled against the ship, he was vaguely reminded of something a while ago... It involved nearly crashing as well...  
"Oh, right!" Cogs promptly turned and bailed as the Time Rotor's teal propellor started flashing red. Jumping out of the door in the back of the ship, he glided down along the street, watching as the ship ploughed into the ground in front of an anti-aircraft battery. He rolled along the street to cancel the last of his momentum, and stood up to find a platoon of Vardic soldiers staring at him, and Silo looking shocked. As he looked around at the soldiers' bewildered faces, Silo walked up to Cogs and gave him a full-out hug.  
"Oh... um... okay," was all Cogs said as Silo's out of character act reached him.  
"Your sense of timing is either absolute bull or dramatically epic, mate."  
"Alright, alright, we can do this AFTER the threat to humanity is nullified, okay?"  
Saying nothing, Silo stepped back, and started with Cogs towards the trench the Starclimber made.  
As Frey duelled with the daemon controlling Trinica in the Ketty Jay's hold, Crake strapped on his sonic flux emitter in a corner of the room. Contemplating his life, he thought of what Cogs had suggested he call it when he had invented it - a sonic oscillator, was it? - and decided to rename it to that. Stepping out of the shadows looking for all the world like that "steampunk ghost buster" that Cogs had described, Crake took aim at Trinica. Frey ducked out of the way of one of her swipes, and Crake opened the floodgates. Sounding for all the world like the call of the apocalypse, the sonic oscillator left Trinica writhing on the floor, where Frey stepped up towards her.  
"Get out of my ally, daemon," the Cap'n said, before holding his cutlass above the daemon, eyes showing conflict. He then started to position the cutlass when Trinica took over again, if only for a moment. In that moment, she pulled the cutlass into her gut, gasping as she did so.  
The daemon did not return, so Frey and Crake picked her up and started to carry her out when Torrent came in and the ship started to rock.  
"The Manes are here, Captain! Something summoned them!"  
Frey and Crake looked at each other, silently confirming: Another Mane distress beacon. They had just gotten back to the Ketty Jay when they saw Jez, burned to hell by a firestorm a few days back, limping out of the Ketty Jay's cargo hold as she was restored - to her Mane form. She gave them one last look, and grabbed the access chain of a Mane battleship flying overhead, leaving the Ketty Jay forever. The Ketty Jay left the Delirium Trigger's deck as the ship started to plummet towards the mountains on the outskirts of Thesk. Seeing the flagship start to fall, the rest of the hodgepodge Awakener armada began to split, but was walled in by the Manes, who were just firing randomly at this point, Samarlans, who felt betrayed as all hell, and the Vardic Navy, who weren't going to leave them be.  
Amidst the ensuing shredding above, Cogs joined in as the anti-aircraft battery started firing. He put a few shots into the hold of a few damaged ships, and smiled when he saw the remnants of a giant Scrambler Hourglass start to release its acidic smoke. As the Delirium Trigger hit the mountains, the last of its black iron hull discintegrated, leaving a pile of dust and a scorch mark.  
Stepping back into the Starclimber, Cogs tried the ion engines. Thankfully, they started without a hitch. Rising into the air, Cogs shuttled Silo back to the rendezvous point the crew had agreed on.  
All meeting at the rendzvous, the crew was busy sharing stories of their experiences. Cogs and Torrent then nodded to each other.  
"So," Cogs started. "When we joined the crew, we did so so we could watch the major events of the next year to decide when to leave."  
"That time has arrived, like it or not," Torrent continued.  
"But why?" Crake semi-whined. "We're going to get medals and do science!"  
"And help Trinica recover," Frey added.  
"Well, give Trinica our best and keep our medals safe for us, Captain," Cogs said.  
"And work on refining that sonic oscillator, Crake," Torrent added. "I'd hate to miss your science."  
"But unfortunately, this is goodbye," Cogs said.  
"Yeah," Torrent added.  
Frey sighed, a sad smile on his face. "Well, it had to come eventually."  
Torrent boarded the Starclimber, leaving Cogs standing on the boarding ramp.  
"Who knows," he said to the small group. "Maybe we'll meet again someday."  
With that, he boarded the Starclimber as the engines fired up. The black, cubical ship rose into the air, the engines started to scream, and they returned to normal pitch as space bent around the Starclimber and the ship entered the Time Vortex, surrounded by purple flecks.

-/_\\-

Cogs: Best. Universe. Ever.  
Torrent: Yeah, I'd assumed you'd like it.  
Me: Anyway, this segment took much longer to do. And, if I'm not mistaken, it's broken my normal cap of six chapters! Although, admittedly, it contains some of my worst work here, in my opinion, probably even surpassing my unpublished stuff with Torrent.  
Torrent: HEY!  
Me: It's also some of my best in-book cinematography, so... Make of it what you will.  
Cogs: Anyway, leave a vote or a comment, and PM DetectiveSky612 here if you want a specific universe request!  
All: The adventure isn't over yet!


	30. The Council of Fiction

Jack groaned. He was... where was he? He looked around. It was a wood-and-gold courtroom, with a panel of five judges amidst a generic-looking jury. He himself was sitting in a chair, his wrists bound to the arms. His Dragonheart crystal, however, was somewhere else. Glancing around, Jack saw that the Origin Universe copy of himself, that is, me, was sitting in a similar chair.  
"Today, on this Final Day of the month of Tempris, or September 24th, the trial of a Master Jack Grayson by the Court of Fiction for the crimes of creating a crossover of more than 2 franchises and creating an unregistered self-insert fan fiction work. Presiding over the court is Glory, a Rainwing of Pyrrhia, SilverMoonFang, an Author of Earth, J. K. Rowling, an Author of Earth, I, Thursday Next, the Representative of Jurisfiction, from the Bookworld, and the Red Queen, of Wonderland. The questioning of the accused will now commence. Are you Jack Grayson?"  
"Yes," I said.  
"What do you plead to your crimes?"  
"I plead guilty to the crime of creating a multi-franchise crossover, but innocent in that it is a self-insert fan fiction."  
"What do you have to say in your defense about the self-insertion?"  
"While I did use myself as the basis for Jack Grayson, I distanced him from myself such that he's different from me."  
"However, the jury has found that he is still essentially the same person, failing the criteria of the Original Content Test. Observe."  
Jack and I were then subjected to a test for our personalities, which involved gauging our reactions to various scenarios, Internet videos, et cetera. Unfortunately, the test came up as "same person".  
"The evidence has spoken. Jack Grayson, this jury rules that for the crimes of multi-crossover and self-insert, you are found guil-"  
"OBJECTION!" rang from the entrance of the chamber, causing Thursday to pause in her reading of my sentence. Turning to look behind me, I saw the Legal Eagle himself walk up to my chair.  
"Defending the accused, Phoenix Wright. I would like the jury to reconsider this accusation."  
Phoenix leaned in close to me and started to whisper. "You're Jack Grayson, right?"  
"That I am," I whispered back.  
"Your friend James hired me," he said.  
I nodded and turned back to the jury as the Ace Attorney continued his statement. "While it is indeed proven that Jack used himself as the basis for his character, I would ask the jury to look at the canon change published in his spinoff work, Of Steelvale And Technomagic. Does it not say within that he changes the canon to avoid crossover?"  
"That it does," Glory said.  
"Then would it not make sense that the Jack Grayson we are trying today is different from the Jack Grayson presented in Dragonheart, and expanded upon in Continued Adventures?"  
"That it would," Rowling said.  
"And has the author expressed his self-inclusion of his fandom by making everything from his wallpaper to his Steam name to his Windward main save a reference to his work?"  
"Wait, how do you know that?" I asked incredulously.  
"That he has," SilverMoonFang said.  
"Then would it not make the utmost logical sense that the Jack Grayson in Dimension Travellers is different from the Jack Grayson in Continued Adventures, as the later date of Continued Adventures ensures the melding of Jack and Cogs and takes into account the change of personality experienced in the months between the works, and due to the inflexible nature of time and paradoxes, the mere few months have let Jack change his personality to be different from Jack in Dragonheart's, which also ensures that although Cogs is more similar and in Dimension Travellers, it is a change of the character found in Dragonheart and not in the Dragonheart canon itself, and so is considered by the law a fan character, and not eligible as evidence?"  
The judges were silent for a few seconds, then Glory spoke. "That is true."  
"And I would introduce precedents for this crossover, being Lego: Dimensions, Disney: Infinity, and the Universe Meteor arc from Archie Comics. Does Jack, having the rights to his work submitted to the author of Dimension Travellers and having the creative rights to the alternate stories he has created in Dimension Travellers, succeed his rights as laid out under the Creative Commons?"  
"That he does," Rowling said.  
"Then I conclude my argument, and leave the judges to take this evidence into account."  
The judges conferred amongst themselves for a few minutes, then turned back to me and Jack.  
"In light of new evidence and arguments, the jury rules that Jack Grayson is cleared of all charges." Thursday took up a gavel, and whacked it on the gavel-whacking thingy. The court session adjourned, the ropes vanished, I helped Jack out of his chair and turned to Phoenix Wright.  
"Thanks a bunch, Phoenix."  
"Don't thank me, thank your friend. He's the one who hired me. And I'm glad I'm getting paid for this... I had to exploit a lot of loopholes to do this just now."  
I turned to Jack to check up on him, maybe see how confused he was that he'd just been used as court evidence, but he was gone.  
"No, no, no, NO," I said as Phoenix left the room. "Arrgh, I just have to hope he doesn't go back to Vortech..."  
After the brief reprieve of the courthouse session, Jack was thrown back into the cell that Vortech had put him in. His chest hurt as he yearned to get out and reclaim the Dragonheart Crystal, but he didn't fall unconscious like the first time. He'd gotten used to the pain.  
He just hoped that Torrent and Cogs would find him...


	31. Moonfall, Part 1

With the Starclimber on autopilot, Torrent and Cogs found they could rest for a bit. Cogs was inflecting on his personal burden and saving Vardia, while Torrent was retelling his adventures when not with Cogs for the bazillionth time.  
"So then Ugrik's oscillator gave out and I stepped in with my Screwdriver and was like BZZZT while the Samarlans tried to kidnap me!"  
Cogs was sure that about 1% of the actual events remained in the story.  
"Then Frey drew his sword and was like "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" and ran the daemon thrrht nomead eht dna "SSAP TON LLAHS UOY"- Then Frey drew his sword and was like-"  
"Hold on..." Cogs held up a hand, stopping Torrent in his tracks.  
"What?"  
"Why'd you repeat that?"  
"I didn't repeat anything."  
"Yeah, you did, it was like you rewound and-"  
"Are you sure it wasn't déjà vu?"  
Silence, except for the Time Rotor vworrping.  
"To be honest, Torrent... I think it was."  
"Well, that settles it. So, as I was saying-"  
"No, it's honest-to-God déjà vu. I literally witnessed time rewind 10 seconds. Did you do anything?"  
"If time really rewound, would I say yes?"  
"Good point. Still, the fact remains that it happened. I'll check the scanners..." Cogs walked over to a part of the Starclimber's control console, followed closely by Torrent.  
"Huh. It appears that this particular stretch of the universe can rewind or branch off irregularly," Torrent said.  
"Checking visuals..." Cogs said no more as the image of a clock tower and a VERY familiar moon in a dance of death. The Starclimber started to vibrate with the full force of the clock tower's bell as it tolled endlessly.  
"I... know that bell..." Cogs whispered, tears reaching his eyes.  
"What? What is it?" Torrent asked inquisitively.  
"Midnight of the Final Day..." Cogs whispered.  
"No..." Torrent breathed.  
"6 hours remain."

-\|/-

"We have to land and help!" Cogs shouted, with as much force as the moon crushing the clock tower.  
"It's not safe! What if-"  
"Then you can say "I told you so", alright?!"  
Torrent turned to the control board and switched off autopilot. Cogs, having sharpened his sword to the point where it was slicing the whetstone in half, rushed to the door and started pacing. He heard Torrent scream as the Starclimber left the Time Vortex. Looking through the windshield, even he had to react as Majora's Moon stared through the windshield. Torrent managed to stay under control, thankfully, and turned the great black ship to the nearest landing spot.

-\\_/-

Romani fed another apple to the horse that had appeared mere hours ago, and turned around to head to the storehouse. She paused when a strange shadow passed overhead, drawing her handmade wooden bow. It couldn't be... Them. Not yet. Their timing was like clockwork, so the fact that they were here now was... not impossible, admittedly. Even Clock Town's giant clock tower had to be adjusted every so often, or so her sister Cremia said. She nocked an arrow as the great black box came to land in the field, glancing around to check that all the cattle were still there. She started when the rear of the ship, facing the barn and storehouse, slid open and a young man ran out and down the boarding ramp. He looked around, apparently in a hurry, then froze when he saw Romani, bow drawn, aiming at him.  
"Not such a warm welcome for someone who's supposed to save the world, huh?" a second young man - Almost identical! - said.  
"Don't come closer!" Romani said, switching her bow between the two newcomers, "Either of you! Romani said DON'T COME CLOSER!" she growled, getting slightly angry as the second one started down the ramp, who promptly stopped.  
"What?" The second one said.  
"I think she's referring to herself in the third person," the first one said.  
"Then why...?" The second one indicated Romani.  
"Traumatic experience, most likely."  
"No," Romani said, "You're one of Them."  
"Them?" The first one asked. "Describe them, please."  
"They come each year, a couple of days before the carnival. They take the cows, each year. Romani's decided to practice extra hard on her archery so Romani can defend the ranch!" Romani said, deciding that the newcomers weren't two of Them, as they didn't even know who They were. She hefted her bow to punctuate her statement. The first newcomer smiled.  
"Well, seeing as we know your name now," he said, kneeling down to Romani's height, "why don't we tell you ours?" The young man pointed to himself, and then his duplicate. "I'm Jack, but you can call me Cogs, and that's Torrent over there." Hearing his name, Torrent promptly waved to Romani. "We've come here because there's trouble brewing, and we're here to save the world!"  
Romani giggled. "Romani likes you! Saving the world from Them!"  
Cogs' face darkened momentarily, then brightened back to its usual state. "Yeah, sure... saving the world from Them." He smiled at Romani. "Now, fair maiden, when do you suppose They will come? Heros must know their quest!"  
"They will be here tonight. We must stop them taking the cows so that Big Sis can start the new year without worry!"  
"We'll wait around with you. Something tells me we may have help before long." Cogs smiled at Romani, then walked back to Torrent.  
"She's Romani, little sister of Cremia, the ranch owner. She's decided to defend the ranch from the annual cow abduction this year. She's brave and good with a bow. I'd put her age at about 10 or 11." Cogs informed Torrent, inerroneously describing their new friend.  
"That's unreal!" Torrent said incredulously, flinching in surprise.  
"As unreal as, say, a dimension-hopping preteen with a sword that's probably overcompensating?"  
"Well, if you put it that way- heeey..."  
"I'll take that as a yes to what I was going to say earlier!" Cogs said, with a smile way too big for the situation. He turned back to Romani, and smiled at her. "We're all in!"  
Romani's face lit up as Cogs struggled to keep Torrent from thrashing him, all while smiling.  
"We'll have to see how you are with a bow!" Romani said, bordering on hyper with excitement. "Romani will set up balloons around the ranch! Just wait here!"  
One red-haired blur and three seconds later, Romani was back, and ten balloons were lined up at the edge of the ranch, some 100 metres away.  
"They're all ready! Do you want to try your rangership?  
\- Yes, I'll do it }-  
\- No, thanks

Torrent and Cogs glanced to each other, then back to Romani.  
"Was I supposed to see something?" Cogs asked.  
"Considering my last experience with Hylian, it's a part of the dialect that fades with time." Torrent replied.  
"Alright, then," Cogs said, stepping forward. "I'll try it."  
Torrent thought he heard a sound effect from somewhere, but dismissed the thought. Cogs drew his pistols.  
"If you can pop all 10 of the balloons before running out of ammunition, then you're ready!"  
Cogs drew a deep breath, raising his pistols and cocking the gears. He started to fire, a series of loud bangs ripping through the yard as round after round discharged. When Cogs stopped firing and the Clockwork Revolvers ran out of ammo, Torrent walked up beside him.  
"I'd say 2 balloons."  
"Romani counted three!" Romani piped up from behind Cogs.  
"Pfft, overcompensating, my Screwdriver... THIS is how you shoot."  
Yet another Romani-sized, red-haired blur and three more seconds later, the balloons that had popped were replaced with identical new ones.  
"They're all ready! Do you want to try your rangership?  
\- Yes, I'll do it }-  
\- No, thanks

"Once again," a confused Cogs said, "was I supposed to see something?"  
"Just something you'd probably notice if you're, say, "overcompensating"?" Torrent suggested. "I can't see anything either, to be honest. Anyway, let me show this geezer how to shoot!"  
He stepped forward as Cogs stepped back. He took a few deep breaths, then started firing, a steady pulse echoing through the ranch. He didn't actually move, but swivel, as one by one the balloons popped. Torrent had fired at the last balloon when a huge KABOOM echoed throughout the ranch, throwing Torrent off his aim.  
A small figure, clad in green, walked through the dust cloud by an ex-pile of rubble and surveyed the ranch around him.  
"HWOAAH?!"


	32. Moonfall Part 2, and Why I've Been Quiet

Torrent could only stare blankly in shock as he processed what just happened. The green figure, however, gave no such reaction, drawing a sword and walking towards Torrent. Cogs and Romani merely glanced between the two, puzzled.

"Torrent, do you know this Hero?"

Torrent said nothing.

"Romani thinks he looks like a grasshopper," Romani said.

The Hero of Time walked right up to Torrent, going toe-to-toe with him, and standing up to his chest. He stared Torrent in the face with deep blue eyes, trying to see something inside Torrent, when he stepped on Torrent's toe.

"YAGGH!" Torrent shouted, more out of surprise than pain, and clutched his throbbing toe. "A simple 'hello' could've been nice!"

Just then, a small glowing ball with insectile wings flew up to the Hero's back. "There you are, Link! And who are these people?" a small voice said from the ball.

Link then made a flurry of hand signals and gestures, unintelligible, except maybe to the little ball.

"Oh, I see. And why are you still mad?"

More gestures, this time involving something about Torrent, Link's tongue and a sharp edge.

Cogs looked back and forth between the ball, Link, and Torrent, mouthing "What?" with a confused face all the while.

"Sorry we had to be introduced like that," the small ball said, turning to Cogs, Torrent, and Romani, "but seeing as you know Link already, I'm Tatl, a fairy. I just interpret Link's gestures for everyone and help him with the lay of the land. That, and the fact that I'm trying to get back to my brother, which lines up with what Link's trying to do."

"And that would be?" Cogs asked.

"Get Majora's Mask back for the Happy Mask Salesman. HE'S CREEPY," Tatl said after looking around a bit.

"Well, we're here to try and stop the Moon from falling," Cogs said, hints of remorse, dread, and pain seeping into his voice.

"And why can't Link talk to us directly? He was fine the last time I saw him."

Link made a few hand gestures.

"He says that he lost most of his voice during a battle with one 'Ganon'," Tatl replied.

"Oh… Sorry about that, my boy… I'd have helped if I knew what would go down."

[It's a bit late for that…] **(A/N: These brackets will be used whenever Link says something through Tatl. It'd be a bit of a hassle to write it as Tatl's dialogue all the time, not to mention confusing about who's speaking during lengthy conversations.)**

"Yeah, whatever," Torrent said. "The past is the past. It can't be changed easily."

[You say that as if you're an expert on the subject.]

"Trust me when I say it's complicated, OK?"

[And what's that big black thing? Are you…] Link raised his sword. [one of Them…?]

"No, they're not one of Them!" Romani quickly interjected, stepping in front of Link, a confused expression on her face. "Though Romani never told anyone but Cremia about Them…"

"[Time travel,]" was everyone's swift reply. [I'll explain later.]

"Well, Link, what brings you here? Here being the ranch, not… wherever this is," Torrent said, steering the conversation away from his story, as it was by now very lengthy and hard to tell.

[First, it's Termina. And second, I heard from a very reliable source-]

"Which wasn't me," Tatl added.

[Yes, I think they get it, which was not Tatl. Anyway, I heard from a reliable source that Romani was looking for help against Them. So, Tatl and I came to see if we could help.]

"Thank you for the offer, Grasshopper," Romani said, "but Romani thinks that she's got enough help as it is, what with these two nice boys. Anything more would be overkill."

"Well, Romani, better overkill than underkill," Cogs said. "Link, how good are you with a bow?"

One Romani-sized blur later, a row of balloons was set up at the edge of the ranch.

"They're all ready! Do you want to try your rangership?"  
\- Yes, I'll do it }-  
\- No, thanks

"One more time, and then I'll stop saying this," Cogs deadpanned, "Am I supposed to see anything?"

[Hey, you're weird in that you leave your questions open,] Link gestured. [Besides, blink or you'll miss this.]

Link took out a bow from a Subspace Belt Pouch, and nocked an arrow. He took a deep breath, then quickly drew and fired.

One shot, one hit. Repeated ten times.

[And THAT,] Link gestured with a smug look on his face, [is how you aim with Z.]

"Umm..." Torrent said. "I don't think Cogs and I have such a control setup..."

[Whatever. Just accept that I'm better.]

"And Link just drops some seriously savage salt," Cogs deadpanned. "Well, I'm done. I've seen it all."

"ROMANI!" a new voice shouted. "What are you doing?! And who are these people?!"

The owner of said voice, who, from Romani's reaction, was Cremia, was glaring at the two Jacks and the Hero of Time with an expression that could probably be described best as livid.

"Who the hell are you? Romani isn't going anywhere, thank you very much!" Cremia shouted.

"Sorry to have scared you, my lady," Cogs said, stepping to the front and bowing deeply. "Percival T. Barnum, at your service. My motley company of heroes and I," Cogs indicated Torrent, Link and Tatl to his left, "Were just stopping by as we'd received notice of how one Romani Romani had sought help from wandering heroes concerning an alien invasion of this ranch."

"Romani," Cremia said, "What have I told you about your fantasies with those aliens?"

"That Romani wasn't to tell anyone about the eldritch horrors from beyond the sky..." Romani deadpanned, with a tone that showed how often the two sisters had had this conversation.

"And when did I tell you to do it?"

"Always."

"So why did you tell Mr. Barnum?"

"Because he said he was here to save the world!"

Cremia sighed. "Just go back to the house... We'll talk about this later."

As Romani left, Cremia turned to "Mr. Barnum", unaware of Romani's signalling and Tatl's nod.

"I'm so sorry about that... A few years ago, she got the idea into her head after Dad disappeared... She's been telling everyone she can find ever since."

"It's no problem at all, my lady. We've stopped in Clock Town for the Carnival of Time, and as this was close by, we decided to look into it. Your road in was obstructed, so we... erm... _excavated_ our own way in..." Cogs said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the small piles of rubble and dust on either side of the Milk Road."

"Ah, I see. Thank you for that. Also, what's that big black box thingy right behind you?"

"Wh... What? What boxy thing?" Cogs sputtered incredulously, looking over his shoulder and right at the Starclimber. "I... I don't see anything... Torrent, Link, can I get a second opinion on this?"

Both turned as they caught on to Cogs' diversion, replying in the negative.

"Oh... Must be the sun, then..." Cremia sighed, blushing. "Geez, I need to lay off of the Chateau Romani... Sorry about that."

"It's no problem at all, miss," Cogs said, smiling.

"Alright, then... Oh! Where are my manners?! Welcome to Romani Ranch, rated number-one dairy farm in Termina three years in a row!"

"Thank you, miss. Although, I do believe we should head back to Clock Town now, as we don't want to be in Termina Field after dark!"

"Then Romani and I thank you for your visit, and hope to see you again!" Cremia said, her face bright.

Cogs, Torrent, Link and Tatl turned around, waving farewells to the Romani sisters, and stopped when they reached a bend in Milk Road, in full view of the clock tower, but invisible from the ranch.

"Romani said to meet her at midnight at the barn!" Tatl hissed.

"How do you know?" Cogs said.

[She'd be unable to interpret for me otherwise.]

"Point taken."

As the sun set, Torrent dismissed the Starclimber with his Sonic Screwdriver, and the four reentered the ranch when they heard the clock tower chime 11:00. Once there, they met with Romani, who had snuck out to meet up with Cogs, Torrent, Link, and Tatl. As the clock tower struck midnight, Romani and Link readied their bows as Torrent drew his gun. Cogs merely drew his pistols as he looked up at the stars.

"Midnight of the First Day," he announced as circling lights started to appear in the skies.

"54 hours remain."

* * *

Hello, all, and welcome to my very first Fanfiction Net exclusive chapter:

Moonfall, Part 2.

Cogs: It's as if something's different somehow!

Torrent: But really, nothing's changed!

Shut up, you two. Anyway, I've made the full transition from Wattpad to here now, so this will be the best source of info on Torrent, Jack, and Cogs' adventures!

I also want to apologize for not posting anything in terms of content recently, as I'm busy proofreading Protonix's main-line OC, the Protonix Ghostbusters chronicles! I'd personally recommend Ghost of the Dragon for its imaginative crossover, even if it's in the middle of the proofreading stage. If ghostbusting and dragons aren't your bottle of Red Potion, check out my friend Kintin23's stories, focusing on One Piece and RWBY. If you're still not happy, I don't know what to do with you. Good luck with that.

Anyway, until next time on:

\- Dimension Travellers -

Hopping the Void


	33. Moonfall, Part 3

Lights started circling in the skies as Cogs, Torrent, Link, and Romani drew various ranged weapons.

"Midnight of the First Day," Cogs said. "54 Hours Remain."

Strange creatures appeared from beneath the lights as the party of four raised said weapons. Romani motioned towards the barn, and the party snuck towards the wooden building, careful not to alert the aliens. Once they entered the barn, they barricaded the windows as the aliens approached. Once that was finished, the four crept outside-

To face a small army of aliens, all staring at them.

"Take us to your leader," Torrent said.

"Really?" Cogs said, glaring at his duplicate.

"What? I've always wanted to say that."

When they turned back, the aliens had cocked various types of laser weaponry, heat weaponry, or otherwise.

"Oh, come ON," Cogs said as he raised his pistols, "Do I have to do everything myself?"

He then started to fire an earsplitting barrage of bullets into the army of aliens. The crowd scattered as Link and Romani drew their bows and started sharpshooting aliens. Torrent, always one to avoid wanton combat, settled for kneecapping (or the equivalent area) whoever he had a clear shot on.

The onslaught continued much in this manner, panic eventually giving way to lasers and beam swords when the aliens managed to avoid a rout.

"Dawn's coming and I'm running out of ammo!" Cogs said as he ducked into the barn behind Link and Romani, light showing on the horizon.

"Why don't you have more? I could at the very least get the Starclimber to manufacture you some infinite clips!" Torrent said in between potshots through a crack between the doors.

"Do you think this thing runs on clips?! I had to stock up on freaking TWELVE-GAUGE DEER SLUGS when I made these!"

[Twelve-gauge deer slugs?]

"It's nothing. Just focus, it'll probably be over soon."

"Probably?"

"Just shut up and keep shooting."

Over an hour later, the banging on the barn doors stopped. Light filtered through the windows, which were smeared from dust kicked up during the fighting. The clock tower in Clock Town could be heard chiming 6 AM, and birds were singing in the few trees on the edge of the ranch. Cogs sighed.

"Dawn of the Second Day... 48 Hours Remain."

The barn doors creaked open, and the four raised their weapons...

Straight into the face of a bewildered Cremia.

Nobody spoke for the next few moments until Link coughed.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING IN MY BARN?!" Cremia screamed.

"They-" Romani started.

"Get over here, Romani, these people are clearly not who they say they are."

Cremia turned to Cogs.

"I don't know whether I can trust you enough to try and throw you. One thing I can trust you with, though, is to GET THE HELL OFF OF MY FARM!"

Half an hour later, Cogs, Torrent, and Link were standing at the entrance of Romani Ranch.

"Well, that's one obligation complete," Cogs said.

"Yeah, no kidding!"

[I think I ran out of arrows a couple of times.]

"Whatever. The sky is falling, and Chicken Little still has a lot more running to do."

[Where to next? Clock Town?]

"Yeah, probably. Cogs?"

"Today, we set sail for glory, riding the tides of time to ground zero."

"I suppose that's a yes..."

Link then set off, leading Cogs and Torrent to the clock tower beneath the Moon.

Once the trio had reached the gates, Cogs stopped them.

"Remember, we need to get everyone out of town and to safety. We're right beneath the Moon, so DON'T lose your cool."

* * *

"EVERYBODY RUN, THE END IS NIGHHHH!" Cogs shouted as he ran from West Clock Town to East Clock Town.

"Y'know," Torrent said to Link as they sat beneath the clock tower while waiting for Cogs to run out of steam, "I think he more does this kind of thing on a whim rather than use any actual planning."

[You're one to talk,] Link said, nudging Torrent. [You offered to do an ammo run last night without thinking of the angry alien mob outside, OR the fact that you'd warped your ship away.]

"Speaking of which, you seem to be taking all of our quirkiness in stride."

[What can I say? I've seen a lot of weird stuff.]

"Noted."

As Cogs returned to South Clock Town and checked the time (3:45 PM), Torrent and Link got up and turned to Cogs.

"You okay now?"

"Yeah..." Cogs said, panting. "Let's go save the world."

Link beckoned the Jacks to follow, leading them to East Clock Town, where he took them past a five-year-old bouncer and into a tunnel. He fought off the occasional Skulltula with the Dragonheart's help, and they soon emerged in someone's basement. While the Jacks looked around, Link stood by the stairs leading up.

[There's someone I want you to meet...] Link said.

"Who is it?"

[I only know him as the Astronomer. He's provided solace for me here, where I can effectively isolate myself and not be bothered by the outside world. Of course, I eventually have to leave, but while I'm here, he's just been the father figure and shoulder to lean on that I didn't have in Hyrule...]

Cogs blinked, his gaze softening. "I..." His eyes started to water. "I... Thank you..." Cogs smiled, walked up, and hugged Link.

[I figured you'd like it, what with...]

"Yes, I know... But I've already got two shoulders to lean on. You and Torrent. I don't need a third."

[Alright. Let's say hello, then, and then head back to Clock Town.]

* * *

It was already nearing dawn when Cogs, Torrent, and Link emerged in Clock Town. Cogs was smiling at first at the friendship that had grown between the short time the three heroes had been together, but that smile vanished and was replaced with horror when he looked up.

"Dawn of the Final Day..." Cogs said as the clock tower tolled for 6 AM. "24 Hours Remain."


	34. Moonfall, Part 4

"Dawn of the Final Day," Cogs said, horror on his face as he looked up to the sky above Clock Town. "24 Hours Remain."

Cogs whirled around to Torrent and Link, and held up his watch, frantically babbling. "We'veonlygotadayleftweneedtoevacuatetheplace LINK! TORRENT! WHY THE HELL IS THAT KID STILL THERE?! GET HIM OUT AND CHECK FOR ANYONE ELSE!" The Dragonheart stopped, panting, as he caught his breath. "Where's the Happy Mask Salesman? Isn't he somewhere around here?"

[He's in the basement of the clock tower.]

"I'll get him out, then," Cogs said. "You two search the city and evacuate. I'll try and get the Happy Mask Salesman out."

* * *

[Play Cogs POV Music: Believe in Your Strengths - Theophany, Time's End II]

Cogs slowly ground open the heavy clock tower door, which, upon his entry, closed itself. The basement itself exuded a sort of calm atmosphere, far away from the Moon or the town outside, despite being the absolute closest it could to both. Stone walls were covered with algae, a rotating shaft of wood stuck out from a lower floor and reached up to the clock mechanisms, and Cogs could hear running water somewhere. A large, crazy, almost vertical piano sat against one wall. A man sat at it, wearing a large, mask-adorned backpack and purple suit, and playing a mournful tune on the piano. On the _ka-chink_ of the door's latch, the man looked up, and turned to Cogs, smiling.

"Oh," he said, the smile fading. "You are not him."

"And who is "him"?"

"He is merely a boy, yet he has seen ages pass."

"So... Link?"

"That is his name?"

"Yes..."

"You know him?"

"We met at Romani Ranch."

"I see... In any case, I wondered whether you would come here, Jack Dragonheart."

Cogs was startled at the man's speech, speaking of him so casually. "Then you must be the Happy Mask Salesman."

"Yes... That is one of my names. Please... Call me Thanatos."

Cogs paused, but did not let his expression waver. "The god of death."

"Precisely."

Cogs approached the Happy Mask Salesman, glowering at him. "Who are you really? Why condemn Link to this endless loop?"

"What's in a name? I am merely a mask salesman. As for the endless loop... Is it really an endless cycle when you have control of time itself?"

Cogs raised an eyebrow. "Control over time?"

"To a degree where I can say I am its master... a lord of time, if you will."

Cogs openly started at this revelation.

"Now, now, what do you want? We don't have all day..." The mask salesman checked Cogs' watch. "We don't have all night, either. Although, I could just let you stir in your nightmares... being half Time Lord and half telepath lets me do that to people..."

Cogs said nothing, yet closed up a bit as the salesman grinned, a more malicious smirk than cheery smile.

"Ooh... That's potent... Would you like to see what it is?" the salesman asked as tears started to stream down Cogs' face. "No?" he said, as Cogs shook his head, the Dragonheart's eyes betraying dread, regret, and mourning. "Too bad... I think it wants to see you..."

The salesman's laugh echoed in Cogs' ears as the purple-suited man disappeared away from his eyes, and a crunching sound could be heard as the clock tower's bell tolled and the tower started to cave in.

"N... No..." Cogs breathed painfully.

* * *

Torrent and Link rounded up the stragglers left in the town, and sent them to the relative safety of the observatory. Once Link was escorting them, Torrent turned to the sky. Cogs hadn't returned from the clock tower yet, and Link said the clock read 9 PM, The Final Day. What was keeping him?

[Play Music: Nuclear - Kung Fury OST]

The wanderer returned to South Clock Town as the clock struck midnight. The clock tipped back as the ground started to rumble. Flames started to appear around the Moon as it entered Termina's atmosphere. Torrent heard a crashing noise - like shattering glass - and saw the world polarize before him before reverting... One of the first stages of universal decomposition. Cogs was still in the clock tower... What was going on in there? Torrent knew that, whatever the case, his best chance of saving Cogs, and by extension the world, lay with confronting Skull Kid, up on top of the tower. Torrent climbed up the scaffolding that led to the newly-revealed access hatch, and climbed up, not noticing a small, white orb fly past him.

Torrent arrived on top of the clock tower, where Skull Kid hovered, apparently waiting.

"Look upon this, creators of the world, and see what I have wrought!" the entity wearing Majora's Mask screamed to the four corners of the world. "The Bane of Termina! Weep goodbye to that you hold dear as I take my revenge for all the sorrow that this world has forced upon me!"

Skull Kid paused as he heard slow applause from below him.

"Well, the _monologue_ is good..." Torrent said, trying his best to look confident. "... But the _plan_ needs work. I mean, death by large space rock? That's been done before. It's what wiped out the dinosaurs, after all."

"Wha- Who are you?!" Skull kid shouted angrily.

"I'm a concerned citizen. After all, one does not simply become friends with a Hero and not become embroiled in world affairs."

"Who, that little green kid?" Skull Kid laughed. "I'd beat him any day."

"But," Torrent said, drawing his sword and folding out the rifle, "Can you beat _me_?"

* * *

Romani looked out the window at the Moon, slightly tipsy from the Chateau Romani. Was that sudden rainbow effect an actual thing, or was that just her? "Gee, the Moon's awfully big and bright tonight... It's lighting up the whole sky..." She hiccuped and giggled, looking back to her more-tipsy sister. "Can I go for a moonlight stroll?"

"... Sure... Stuff like this only happens once in a blue moon, y'know..."

Romani nodded and walked outside as the large crowd at the ranch got larger. She meandered over to a quiet part, then lay down and looked up at the sky. The moonlight was awfully bright, so she was surprised to see a star, moving across the sky. Eventually, it stopped, and started down towards her. Romani was even more surprised when the star _talked_.

"Oh, Romani, there you are! Come quickly! The fate of the world is at stake!"

Romani blinked a few times, then sat up. "Sure thing, fairy..."

Tatl sighed, then rammed Romani. "C'mon, get _up_! Link needs your help!"

Romani sighed, drawing her bow and running after the fairy, down Milk Road into Termina Field.

Tatl directed her to the observatory, filling her in on the way.

"So Link has to stop Skull Kid and the Moon from destroying Termina, and he just realized he's out of arrows. He needs your help without Skull Kid seeing you helping him - otherwise, he'll block your shots."

As Romani and Tatl reached the Observatory, the Astronomer agreed to help Tatl. They led Romani to the telescope and opened the viewing aperture, creating a space where Romani could shoot through. The girl looked through the scope, fine-tuning the angle, and drew her bow.

She took a deep breath, and nocked an arrow.

* * *

Cogs lay in a fetal position as the Moon descended to mere metres above him. He remembered all of his friends and companions, lost to time and demons. He reflected on his failings, made ever more present as the Moon inched closer.

But then he stopped.

One instance of time resonated in his mind.

Right after the world was eradicated, Andy was there for him, giving him a shoulder to lean on.

A second instance floated to the surface.

Link, in the face of certain doom, gave him two more.

And Torrent had always been there for him, no matter what.

Cogs stood up, his fluffy mop of hair starting to come level to the Moon. He shifted, and placed his talons on the Moon, pushing. The half-dragon grunted as the Moon slowed, eventually starting to reverse. He screamed in pain, regret and feral combativeness as the cracked Dragonheart Crystal around his neck glowed.

Things blurred, and Cogs started to find an absence of moon. He looked around the sanctum, and spotted the Happy Mask Salesman, a full two metres below his height, with a fearful look on his face, sitting at the piano.

"Time Lord or not," the dragon ground out, " _don't_ do that to me again. Not now, not ever. You stand in the presence of a dragon who guarded humanity for one thousand years, and until the day he dies, he'll stand for it!"

The Mask Salesman flinched as Cogs came up close, close enough to breathe in the Time Lord's face. "But for now, you've got a get-out-of-jail-free card, so _get on_..." The dragon indicated a spot between his wings with his tail. "Before I change my mind... No matter how embarrassing it seems for myself."

The purple-suited man blinked, then nodded.

* * *

Torrent stowed his sword as Skull Kid deflected his shots with one hand, Darth Vader-style.

"You can't stop me that easily!" the forest being shouted as he harnessed the power of Majora's Mask. The Moon rumbled in the sky, before accelerating faster towards the clock tower. The Universe polarized again, and again reverted.

Torrent was joined by Link, who merely hugged him as the Moon fell down.

Until Torrent noticed a faint humming.

Torrent checked his pockets, and reaffirmed that it wasn't the sonic screwdriver that was making the noise. That was, until he looked at Link, who was standing beside him, eyes closed, humming what little he could.

And Torrent blinked. It was the Final Hours theme from the original game that Link was humming.

Torrent smiled, and joined in. It wasn't often that he had the opportunity to sing along with someone, considering his nerdy repertoire, so he took this chance at the End of Time.

At the second repeat of the tune, Torrent pulled out the sonic screwdriver as the Moon grew ever closer. He played the Final Hours tune through it, and after another cycle through it, he stopped, while Link kept humming.

Torrent pointed the sonic screwdriver up to the Moon, and blasted epic orchestral renditions of the Song of Healing and the Final Hours. The sonic's vibration grew louder and louder, and lower and lower, eventually shaking the sonic itself to the point of damage. Beside him, Link spared no time in realizing his plan and playing the Oath to Order, calling the Four Giants of Termina to Torrent's aid. The sonic moved on to Oath to Order itself, slightly slowing the Moon and broadcasting Link's call across the land.

The Four Giants came as the sonic screwdriver grew louder and louder, lower and lower, now visibly shuddering and starting to crack.

* * *

Romani took various potshots to help her aim. She adjusted the telescope and tried again. She'd have to nail this right on the nose...

* * *

Cogs wound up a jump as the Happy Mask Salesman adjusted his grip. The Time Lord screamed as the dragon jumped straight up, dodging the clock's drive gear, jumping through the clockwork and punching a hole in the clock face.

* * *

Torrent, Link, Tael, and Skull Kid all reflectively dodged as Cogs and the Happy Mask Salesman came through the clock face. The Four Giants held up the Moon, and once Cogs landed, and the Happy Mask Salesman got off his back, quiet reigned.

Until Tatl and Tael reunited, and everyone released a collective breath as they realized that the Moon had stopped.

At first, they just expressed joy at each others' safety, but everything turned dark when they mentioned Skull Kid.

"Can't you see? Skull Kid was just a fool!" Tatl said, finishing her ratting out of Tael.

"Indeed! That puppet was too flawed to fully appreciate the extent of my power..." a new voice spoke out, causing all present to whirl around: The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, all at once.

"It's Majora's Mask!" Torrent hissed. "The point of reference says it all! And WHY CAN'T I DO ANYTHING!"

"We're caught in a cutscene!" Cogs hissed back. "Since we didn't do anything in the original game, we can't do anything! Neither can anyone not originally in this load zone!"

* * *

Romani tested the string of her impromptu ballista. She smiled as the pikes held, and the lock clicked and held up. She placed a single arrow in the ditch, and aimed the giant crossbow with the telescope.

As the little technicolour thingy started to float around, she pointed the telescope at it. She took a deep breath, checking her aim thrice, and then released the string.

* * *

Torrent and Cogs could only stare in horror as Majora's Mask started up towards the Moon-

Only to be hit and pierced through one eye from behind by an arrow.

"AAAAGH!" the Mask screamed as it wobbled in the air. All of a sudden, eldritch power and black lightning started pouring from the mask. "N - NO! I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED THIS EASILY! VORTECH SAID IT WOULDN'T END LIKE THIS!" It flew up, wobbling erratically, and disappeared into the Moon's mouth. The Moon rumbled once more, and the Four Giants started to struggle as the large space rock started to fall unstoppably once more. Link glanced at the column of thrust, and then to Tatl.

"Oh, come on, you're not seriously thinking of going up there?!" was Tatl's only reply.

Torrent, however, held an arm out and stopped Link when he tried to dive into the stream. "No, not yet... Besides, watch this." Putting his sonic screwdriver in between his teeth, Torrent fished a locket out of his pocket and tied the leather around his neck.

The change was nearly immediate. Standing where Torrent the Wanderer once was was Torrent the Seawing, clutching a sonic screwdriver between his front teeth.

"Eaggh..." Torrent said as he spit the screwdriver out. "I've got to remember the scale change in the future..." Lending nothing more to the conversation, he teamed up with Cogs to hold up the Moon as it reached their shoulder height.

"Oi. Time Lord," Cogs said, straining as the Moon pressed down on his shoulders. "Take the Screwdriver. Blast the Stone Tower Temple theme straight up."

The Happy Mask Salesman nodded, before taking the device Torrent had left on the ground. He examined it a bit, running his fingers over the various controls.

"Exquisite design... Modified... Definitely someone clinging to a bright-steampunk style..."

"JUST DO IT!" Torrent growled.

The Salesman nodded, before adjusting some of the settings and pointing the sonic screwdriver up. When he depressed the activator, everyone present had their ears blasted as the heavy drums of Daniel van Sand's Stone Tower Temple remaster. As the sonic screwdriver cracked further, the Moon slowed with each heavy drumbeat, the eyes of the face growing wider as the stone cracked.

As the Moon fragmented, the six behemoths lifted, and the sonic screwdriver shattered, Majora's screams could be heard as the mask was propelled up into space. As the Moon returned to orbit, Cogs and Torrent shifted back, and the Four Giants departed for the four corners of the world once more. Link, Tatl, Tael, the Happy Mask Salesman, Cogs, and Torrent let out another collective breath.

"It's over," Cogs said.

"For real this time..." Tael said.

[I'd better check up on Malon,] Link said through Tatl.

"The ranch hand?" the Salesman said.

[The one and only!]

"I'd better recall the Starclimber..." Torrent said.

"And how are you going to do that without a sonic?" Cogs said.

"Right. In that case, come with me."

"Why?"

"You can use magic, right?"

"Point taken. Lead on. Oh, and Thanatos?"

"Yes?" the Happy Mask Salesman said.

"Take your TARDIS over to the Moon, make sure the Mask is destroyed or at least disabled, and if not, take it in for safekeeping."

"As you wish."

"And I'm watching you."

"Acknowledged."

As the Hero and Fairies, wanderers, and Time Lord split ways, they agreed to meet at Milk Road.

* * *

The Happy Mask Salesman stepped up to his piano, removing Mario's Mask from his pack. He gazed into the mask's eyes, lost in memory, then placed the mask, facing out, on the sheet music ledge. The strings of the piano glowed blue, before the keyboards and part of the soundboard slid open, revealing the stone-and-wood interior of the Happy Mask Salesman's TARDIS. Masks lined the walls, ranging from Daleks to Cybermen to Zoras and Gorons to stranger masks without any familiar face on them. Underneath each was a small plaque detailing the mask's origin and use, if any.

The Happy Mask salesman walked up to the intricately carved marble console. He pushed a button, and the doors closed. With the pull of another lever, the piano dematerialized, vanishing off into the fabric of time and space.

* * *

Link, Tatl, and Tael ran up the secret passage to the observatory, and the Hero pulled Romani into a big hug when they reunited at last.

"Grasshopper! You're alive!"

['Course I am! I'm the Hero of Termina!]

"Oh, don't pay any attention to him. He stood by the sidelines once his plan of action was vetoed," Tatl said.

[Oh, shut up... Still, I'm glad to see you're okay, Romani.]

"Come on, let's head back to the ranch and explain this to Cremia when she comes off of her hangover," Romani said, ending the conversation and leading Link out the door.

* * *

Cogs and Torrent walked into the split in Milk Road. With a nod from Torrent, the Dragonheart unsheathed his sword and drove it into the ground, kneeling with both hands on the pommel.

"Revoco ille quid nobis deserevit!" Cogs said forcefully.

As he stood up, purple runes appeared on the ground where the sword had been driven into it, and a faint vworrping sound could be heard, getting louder.

As the Starclimber materialized and landed, Link and Romani arrived, stopping by to watch the spectacle as the jet spaceship landed on its own.

"Wow! So the ship really _was_ yours!" Romani said.

"Yep!" was Torrent's reply.

As Link and Romani left (apparently to clear things up with Cremia), Cogs and Torrent boarded the Starclimber. The Dragonheart walked straight to a side table and began drawing up blueprints for something as the Wanderer walked over to the Time Rotor, running a hand over the metal and display boards.

"Sure is nice to be back," Torrent said.

"Yep."

* * *

The Moon's inner chamber was empty, save for Majora. The bare stone that glittered from some eldritch magics reflected a new light, however, one which was fading in along with a piano and a vworrping sound.

Even stranger still was when the front of the piano slid open, revealing a young man clothed in purple. The young man stepped out of the impossible space inside the piano, gazing at the purple mask floating in the centre of the chamber.

The young man reached up to the mask, only a metre or so above his head, with long, thin arms, and grasped the purple object. Taking it under his arms, the young man returned to the impossible space inside the piano, which disappeared as the piano itself did, leaving behind nothing in the chamber save the chamber itself.

* * *

The party reunited at the fork in Milk Road, the piano materializing as the Starclimber had. Link and Romani ran out into the road as the sound stopped, joining Cogs and Torrent who had disembarked.

"So here we are once again," Cogs remarked.

"Indeed," replied the Happy Mask Salesman.

"So how'd things turn out with Cremia?" Torrent asked, turning to Link and Romani.

"Pretty well, actually."

[Even if we had to get Epona out of a little cage-y thing,] Link said.

"Speaking of: The doors leading to the portal to Hyrule are closed for another year," the Happy Mask Salesman said. "If you want to return to Hyrule, you'll have to come with me."

Link turned to Romani, who reciprocated the gesture with a sad look in her eyes, as he pulled out his ocarina and played Epona's Song.

As the horse ran up to Link, Romani handed the Hero a bridle, which he slipped over Epona's head. Grabbing the reins, he entered the Happy Mask Salesman's TARDIS, waving a sad goodbye to a sadder Romani.

Cogs and Torrent said their goodbyes, and boarded the Starclimber, which dematerialized as the piano did. Romani looked out at the departures, mesmerized and sad, before turning back to the ranch. Like it or not, there was a crowd to disperse and return to their homes.

* * *

As Torrent adjusted the temporal heading, Cogs continued the last of his work at the drawing board and synthesizer. Standing up as Torrent took the heading over to the last uncharted bit of terminal space, Cogs caught his attention.

"What is it?"

"Your sonic broke."

"Yeah, it did. What, did you make your own to rub it in my face?"

"Well, uh, technically, uh, nah. Think fast!" Cogs said, throwing a small object around the size of a flashlight to Torrent. Catching the object before it hit the ground, Torrent took a good look at what Cogs had thrown him.

It was a wooden shaft with a bronze top cap and blowtorch handle and an iron support shaft and endcap. On top of the shaft was an uncut quartz crystal inside a bronze holding dish, with iron flanges similar to the previous screwdriver's holding it in place. Between the dish and the shaft was a small wooden rod, clearly attached to gear system. A lightswitch-dimmer style slider sat on the side facing Torrent, who held it up. He slid the slider a bit, which extended and retracted the wooden shaft, before clamping down on the blowtorch handle. The quartz crystal lit up, and from somewhere on the gadget came a _chawff_ sound, similar to a white-noise backup siren on construction vehicles.

Torrent looked over the gadget with glee. "Another sonic screwdriver?"

Cogs nodded. "Designed it myself. Even has an endcap specifically for whacking things. If we never meet again once this whole longer-than-it-seemed rescue mission is over, you'll always have that to remember me by."

Torrent simply smiled. "Thanks."

"Do you know what the mask meant by "Vortech"? Isn't he a video game villain?"

"Never heard of him."

"Yeah, I think he's a video game villain."

All further conversation ended as a klaxon started up on the Starclimber. On the display was a large blue figure, with several smaller figures doing battle with it, over in the terminal space segment they'd met the Doctor in. His voice called out over the internavic radio.

"Calling all heroes! This is a Grade 42 Galactic Emergency! Lord Vortech is attempting multiversal domination!"

Cogs and Torrent looked at each other as the message described the situation. Without a word spoken, Torrent changed course.

* * *

Hello, everyone! DetectiveSky612 here!

I apologize for not posting nearly as much as I'd like to. I'm kinda weighted down a lot considering school and all that, so I pretty much do what I can in my spare time.

In the meantime, Cogs and Torrent have been swept back into the LEGO Multiverse with the appearance of Lord Vortech, a blue entity bent on multiversal domination!

See what happens in the conclusion of the main story of Dimension Travellers: Hopping the Void!

Coming soon to a Fanfic Dot Net near you!


	35. Boss Battle: Lord Vortech! (I)

The Doctor scrambled around the TARDIS console as he kept the old girl on her course to Dimension Prime. He swerved around debris from Lord Vortech's messy merging of dimensions. A couple bits of Cloud Cuckoo Land hit the TARDIS here and there, causing her to rock, but it was no big problem.

At least, until the Doctor was caught off guard by a collision and he fell onto a button on the side console.

"No, no, no!" the Time Lord said as he realized which button he'd pressed. "Vortech can't learn of their-"

The Time Lord was interrupted and shocked back into his fight for control by another rumbling collision, heading back to the flight controls. Messing with controls here and there, he steered the TARDIS back in Vortech's general direction.

He could only hope that the Starclimber was out-of-commission right now.

* * *

Cogs twirled his revolver around his index finger as he leaned against the whirling Time Rotor, catching it when it was right-side-up. Torrent micromanaged details on the Starclimber, watching their course towards Lord Vortech, but otherwise was just as bored as Cogs. Swivelling the chair back to the half-dragon, he pulled out the sonic screwdriver Cogs designed, examining the bronze-and-wood handiwork, the iron pommel, and the quartz resonator. Extending the multitool and activating it with a _chawwwf_ , one could imagine his surprise when the sonic _blip_ ped.

"What was that?" Cogs asked.

"It's a... collision warning..." Torrent said, his jaw falling open, before whirling back towards the Starclimber's controls and slapping buttons.

"Collision with _what_ , exactly?"

"An unnatural amount of debris, along with a Class 7 transdimensional entity. One that is apparently doing battle inside these rifts..." Torrent said, looking at his hands (which had been converted once more to LEGO-figurine form) before placing them on the yoke and steering the ship through the debris field.

* * *

Gandalf, Batman, and Wyldstyle freefell through the rift, getting closer and closer to Lord Vortech with each piece of debris avoided. Unexpectedly, the TARDIS pulled up beside the trio, its doors opening to show the Doctor, hanging on to the threshold to keep from getting blown out of the machine by the omnipresent wind.

"Not to distract you three, but we've got company!" the Doctor shouted over the roar of rushing air.

"Who?" asked Batman, looking around the rift as everyone dodged laser-eye blasts from Vortech.

"Do they bring aid?" Gandalf said, holding his hat on his head.

"Well, if you're friends of the Doctor, then that's a yes!" a new voice sounded from the trio's other side.

The teenager leaning out of an access hatch on a squarish spaceship waved, before greeting the Doctor.

"How's life, Doctor? We decided to swing 'round once we heard a distress beacon from this area and detected a Class 7 transdimensional entity."

The newcomer could say no more as the ship was rocked by a laser blast.

"Talk, Doctor! Now!" Batman said, dodging a giant lollipop.

"They're a pair of dimensional copies - like you and that other Batman, except _they_ like each other."

At this, the teen reappeared. This time, however, instead of a 21st-century street-standard outfit with a sword, he wore a longcoat over his clothes, and carried a pair of revolvers.

"OH MY GOD! Torrent, you didn't tell me you met THE DOCTOR! _WHILE INSIDE ONE OF MY FAVOURITE VIDEO GAMES TO DATE!_ "

The newcomer took a deep breath. "So who's here battling Vortech? Headcount, roster, anything?"

Just then, the Ecto-1 whizzed by, sirens blaring, before the Ghostbusters inside started to fire their Proton Packs at Vortech.

"Right! This part! It looks like you guys need more allies! This isn't much!"

"Just you wait!" Batman shouted. "Who are you?!"

He didn't get an answer from the newcomer as he was already back inside his spaceship.

"That was Jack Grayson. You've met two of the three now. The third one should be somewhere inside the Starclimber, their spaceship," the Doctor supplied.

* * *

Cogs rushed back to Torrent's side, watching Vortech weigh his next shot. The Dragonheart then nodded to the wanderer, turning to the Time Rotor's computer systems and booting up TimeSkype. After selecting the Urgent Call setting and retrieving a Dreamvisitor Stone, Cogs compiled a list of all the people he and Torrent knew that could possibly help.

It wasn't that big, but it was definitely _something_.

* * *

Five-year-old Ruby looked up to her big sister, Tourmaline, as the elder Skywing attached the gold earring to her sister's ear. The too-shiny earpiece reflected the blood-red moonlight from the night sky as the fog flowed into the throne room through the doorway. Ruby heard Tourmaline whisper goodbye as the fog swallowed her up. Tears welled in her eyes as she remembered her sister, wishing that this was just another dream, and nothing lucid.

She stopped and turned as she heard that sound again; that indescribable screeching, exactly as she had heard it the day those scavengers had made a fool of the arena manager.

Her jaw dropped as she saw a scavenger, _the_ scavenger, around her size in the dream, stride into the room, metal claw in hand, with a strange stone strung around his neck.

She backed away as the scavenger approached, and the stone at his neck started to glow a brilliant green. To her astonishment, the light cleared away some of the fog, keeping it at bay outside the door and the pavilion. Furthering her awe was Tourmaline's reappearance. The orange Skywing reformed from thin air right beside her sister, leading to tears and hugs.

About a minute after Ruby had started hugging Tourmaline, the scavenger cleared his throat, catching the dragonets' attention.

"Sorry if I brought back any bad memories, Ruby, but I need help from both of you."

"You can speak?!"

"Long story short, yes. Anyway, there's a very evil entity that's trying to conquer the universe."

"Worse than Mother?" Tourmaline asked, her voice echoey in the dream.

"Yes."

"I'll see what I can do to help."

"But wait..." Ruby said. "Tourmaline, you can't help... See, you're... You're..." Ruby choked on her words, unable to speak the truth.

"The same person, actually," the scavenger finished.

Both Tourmaline and Ruby stared at the scavenger as if he had grown an extra head. "WHAT?!"

"I've seen both of your fates; trust me. Ruby, if you'll hand me your earring?"

Ruby hesitated. "Um... No... This earring was Tourmaline's last gift to me before she died..."

"Tourmaline's right beside you."

"This is a dream! Tourmaline isn't out there in the real world! She's dead!"

"And... Yoink!" Tourmaline smiled as she nabbed her sister's earring.

"What?" Ruby said as she felt her whole world shift. An earthquake rocked the throne room, cracking the gold-plated walls.

When Ruby looked at herself, she wasn't there.

Tourmaline was there instead.

Except Tourmaline was still beside her...

The scavenger and Tourmaline high-fived as Ruby struggled to reboot her brain. Eventually, Tourmaline put Ruby's earring back on, and Ruby returned to normal.

"See?" the scavenger said. "Just listen to me."

* * *

Andy snored as he leaned back in the chair he'd pulled up by the door. Someone had to watch the alarm system in Jack's garage each night in case Quintus decided Jack had to die that night, so it was routine for someone to stand guard. It was also boring, tiring, and easy to sleep off.

Andy jolted back awake, igniting his laser sword, upon hearing one of Jack's "whistles & bells" sound off.

Checking Jack's laptop, he sighed as he saw that it was just a videocall from Jack.

Picking up quickly, he gawked at what Jack was wearing.

"Hey, Jack! How's your quest going?"/"Jack?! Where the hell are you?! And what the hell are you wearing?!"

Jack simply smiled, and let the two Andies on the line stare at each other.

"Is this Quintus' idea?"/"Who the hell are you, _imposter_?"

"Now, now, Andy, I'd love to leave you to argue with yourself, but-" The camera on Jack's end was visibly rocked by something. "I have more pressing matters at hand."

This time, both Andies were in agreement, perfectly in sync. "What do we need to do?"

* * *

Captain Darian Frey removed the syringe (which had previously held a dose of Shine) from his arm, and waited for the trip to start. When the walls started to melt, however, he saw something surprisingly cohesive in all the drug-addled visions:

Cogs was walking through one of the walls.

Looking around, the ex-crewmember _harrumph_ ed, holding up a blue, star-shaped stone. "So this thing _does_ work when the recepient's high. The more you know..." He pocketed the stone, and looked to Frey. "Captain, there's something you probably don't want to hear."

Ignoring Frey's groggy, inquisitive and stoned interpretation of "What?", the Dragonheart continued.

"You need to save the universe with me and Torrent. Just try to keep your cool and fly through the Manes' hurricane portal thing and turn left. Trust me." With that, he disappeared.

As the high wore off and everything reassembled, Frey wobbled to his feet in an attempt to get out of his cabin and wake his crew.

* * *

The Happy Mask Salesman was smiling, as always, when he picked up. As usual, he seemed to know much more than he should by any rights, and as usual, he seemed to not want to annoy Cogs. He only needed to be told who was there ("The Doctor"), where ("Try going from the second star to the left into twilight"), and what was going on.

So when his piano-shaped TARDIS was the first one to show up, Cogs was both pleased and slightly annoyed.

"Ah, there you are, Mr Cogs! I trust you are well?"

"Just dandy! Oi, Doctor!"

The two Time Lords stared at each other before laughing.

"Thanatos?" The Doctor said. "Is that you?"

"I could say the same, Doctor," the Happy Mask Salesman said. "Stealing a TARDIS? Even in a repair shop, that's gutsy."

"Not now!" Cogs said, sticking his head out of the Starclimber. "We have a Big Bad to fight, McGuffin or no!"

"Now, I'm not sure what a McGuffin is," Darian Frey said, standing on the Ketty Jay's cargo door, "But at this point, I've learned to just laugh and get on with it." The Ketty Jay descended on the scene from a more violent whirlwind, blowing snow into the rift.

"Captain!" Cogs shouted, smiling up at his ex-superior.

"Long time no see, Cogs. How's Torrent? Still the drake I left him as?"

"New sonic screwdriver, but yeah."

"How'd you reach me through that wall?"

"It's called a Dreamvisitor. You can basically enter other peoples' dreams with it."

"And how, exactly, did you come across a dreamvisitor?" a new voice said. "There are only three in existence!"

The four travellers looked up to see a flight of dragons, newly arrived, flying behind the Starclimber.

"And you are?" Cogs said.

"Flight Leader Carnelian, sir!" the leader, also the youngest, said. "I'm here on Queen Ruby's orders, direct from Jade Mountain!"

"Good, good, that makes almost everyone!"

"You still didn't answer my question."

"I stole it from Scarlet. Happy?"

"Good enough."

The newcomers and the Doctor flew off to battle Lord Vortech, leaving Cogs behind, waiting for both his and Jack's tank crews.

Nothing came.

The Starclimber flew off to bombard Vortech when Cogs stopped it due to a strange noise.

The sound of Helen's sonic screwdriver.


	36. Boss Battle: Lord Vortech! (II)

The identical bass pulses of the Helens' sonic screwdrivers resonated through the rift as Cogs turned back to the tank crews.

"Good! You're here!"

Torrent then joined Cogs in the back of the ship. "So the tanks are here?"

"Yeah. Who's flying?"

"Autopilot."

"A'right."

"Yeah, just make sure the tanks don't touch each other-"

There was a _dink_ as the Joves, unexperienced in flying tanks through rifts as they were, somehow managed to collide with each other, to the response of much minor cursing from the Jameses.

"... like that."

"Ah."

A beat passed, housing uncomfortable silence.

"What now?"

"Well, assuming the best, nothing."

"And assuming the worst?"

"The universe is rent apart by the contact of two cosmically identical objects."

"Riiight..."

"So now we just assume that-"

There was suddenly a huge, indescribable rending noise as the Starclimber shuddered - and apparently the whole rift shook too, if the reactions from the people battling Vortech were anything to go by. Both Jacks grabbed the hatch's bulkhead as they tried not to fall off.

"... nothing happened." Torrent pulled out his sonic screwdriver and diagnosed what happened. "Oh... no..."

* * *

Derek sat back in the chair at his desk in Protonix Ghostbusters HQ. He was just finishing a long string of busts, and he was glad that he had a bit of time to spare for some rest, _finally_. The chief Ghostbuster had hardly closed his eyes when his PKE meter (which, up until now, had been sitting quietly on his desk) suddenly started beeping, the wings folding out and flashing. Derek opened his eyes with a groan, and looked at the screen. He frowned when he saw the bright pink that dared to disturb his sleep. The weren't any portals here at HQ. He'd know if there was. So why was there suddenly a huge spike of-

Derek didn't get to ponder any further as he was bodily thrown, Protonix Pack and all, into a huge rift. He fell past his world, and saw that the 2016 Ghostbusters' flash by, before actually meeting said Ghostbusters, who were _also_ falling through this rift.

"Any idea what's going on?" he shouted over the wind to no specific anyone.

"It's a fifth-dimensional event of high irregularity and high damage-to-the-fabric-of-the-universe!" Yates shouted from the driver's seat of their Ecto-1.

"That's not good, is it?" he followed-up as the grabbed the roof rack.

"No!"

The Ghostbusters then had to take evasive action with their Proton Packs to avoid collision with... well, a lot of things really. Some of them Derek recognized, some of them he didn't, and he was fairly sure that he didn't want to hit any of them.

They _did_ pick up a new teammate and alternate-universe Buster, though, some guy named Simon, so that was OK.

* * *

Torrent cursed as the Starclimber stabilized, then he overrode the autopilot and steered around the 2016 Ecto-1, which had apparently decided Vortech was a gigantic ghost and promptly went over towards the 1984 Ecto-1 so that the occupants could swap stories and get to know _what the hell was going on_.

"That's not good, is it?" Cogs said.

"No," Torrent said as Cogs went out the back hatch, then climbed up onto the roof of the Starclimber, keeping his aerodynamic drag to a minimum. He dodged out of way with a _yipe_ as a black blur flew by, only for it to dig its claws into the Starclimber and come to a stop. Cogs only had enough time to turn back around before he was bowled over (and nearly knocked off of the Starclimber) by someone who was now- _OH GOD WHO THE HELL IS THIS SHE'S KISSING ME-_

 _THAT WAS A TONGUE._

When the kisser released a still-squirming Cogs, the Dragonheart blurred to the other side of the ship, directly above the cockpit.

"WHOTHEWHATTHE _HELL DID YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"_

The kisser - a blonde, Cogs realized - frowned, cocking her head. "Jack? Has it really been that long?"

As the black blur (which had since reformed into a person) leaned into the blonde and whispered something with a deadpan look on her face, causing the blonde to deadpan as well, Cogs bent over the lip of the hull, knocking on the windshield.

"Who's the blonde?!" he shouted to Torrent, who simply blinked, turned autopilot on, and blitzed onto the roof.

"Silver?!" Torrent shouted as he clambered onto the roof.

"I-" Silver was simply speechless as she looked between the two Jacks.

"It's a long story," Torrent said as he broke a hug from Marinza.

Silver blinked. "Well," she said, dodging an errant laser blast, "It looks like there's a Big Bad to fight." She took a bit to figure out the rift's laws of aerodynamics, then leapt off the Starclimber and dove towards Vortech, who by now was looking rather silly trying to split his efforts between ten-plus targets. Marinza merely shrugged and climbed down into the ship, intent on seeing exactly what Torrent had been doing without her.

Someone on a Firebolt blurred by, then turned around and came back.

"Alabaster?"

Harry Potter got to say no more as an even louder rending sound perforated everyone's eardrums and generally was distracting and loud.

"What was that?" Cogs said as the sound died.

" _WHAT?!_ " was Torrent's reply, before he shook his head to clear it. "Sorry, what?"

Cogs repeated himself.

"That..." Torrent said, diagnosing with his sonic screwdriver before quickly starting to panic inside, "... was the Fourth Wall."

"Oh..."

"Should we worry?"

"Nah, we've got plot armour. We're bound to make it through alive at the very least."

Cogs could not reply with snark, rhetorical questions or witticisms as he was knocked over by yet another Jack.

Said new Jack got up, dusted himself off, and promptly frowned at Torrent. "I leave you guys at the head of _one story_ and you somehow find a way to not only destabilize a rift but compromise the Fourth Wall..." The new Jack shook his head. " _Shame on you_."

"So, uh," Cogs said, getting up shakily, "Should we call you Jack? I mean ours is..."

"I know where yours is, I'm the author," the new Jack snapped, sighing. "And you can call me Sky."

"Dude, why are you so uptight?" Torrent asked.

"It's just... This is the first major Fourth Wall break in this story, and Terminus sent me down to fix it. As time progresses, I see no way to fix the Fourth Wall, and I'm in danger of being rent apart by lasers..." Sky said, as a laser seared inches over his head as if to punctuate the statement.

"So... It's been one of those days?"

"Yep."

"Well, I can see no way of fixing this until Vortech over there reaches Foundation Prime, then I can use my Plot Pen to write you out of this," Sky said, showing the Jacks a somewhat longish quill.

"Can you get us there?"

"Well, yes, provided I can fly the Starclimber. I know how protective you are of the ship."

"Go ahead. Autopilot's on, so it's not as if you can crash the thing anyway."

Sky then clambered down into the ship, followed by Cogs and Torrent.

"Jeez," Sky said, blinking. "Why'd I have to make everything so... _cyberpunk_? I can't even focus on anything but the Time Rotor. Hi, Marin." The Time Rotor, which until now had been spinning the teal propellor thingy as it bobbed up and down, said nothing, which was a good thing. Marinza, who by now was somewhat used to the idea of seeing multiple Jacks, waved and said "hello" from where she sat looking through the Starclimber's archives.

Taking a seat at the console, Sky looked over at the controls.

"Okay, I'm not gonna lie to you guys, but I have no idea how to fly a plane. God, why couldn't I have just made War Thunder controls or something?"

As if in response, the entire console control board flipped over to reveal a keyboard and mouse and the ship's heads-up display switched to something not unlike that of _War Thunder_.

"Oh."

Sky then proceeded to maneuver the ship masterfully through the chaos that was the post-Riftquake battle against Vortech. Steering past the Big Bad, his opponents, and several blasts of several kinds, Sky left the rift to a grey, wavy, uncertain sea below and a star-studded sky above.

"I take back anything bad I may have said about your piloting skills," Torrent said. "You're better than I am."

Sighting a stone palace below, Sky dealt with his acceleration and speed, touching down with a gentle _thud_. "Oh, by the way, let's try to get this over with quickly. I'm trying to wrap up loose ends before I embark on another story."

Cogs and Torrent shrugged, trying not to think of goodbye, as they disembarked, leaving Sky on the Starclimber.

The palace was sparse, consisting only of a throne, a storage room, and a brig. The Jacks looked through the empty cells, before finding the one with Jack in it. Cogs knelt down and promptly froze, upon seeing his duplicate's pale face and lack of consciousness.

"Oh, no..."

"What?"

"They've taken the Crystal."

Torrent, indeed seeing that the usually-omnipresent crystal was absent, turned around. "Well, it can't be far."

Cogs got up as well, moving to the centre of the room. "Vortech keeps his MacGuffins in here," he said, pointing to the centre of the floor.

"Well, then how do we get in?"

"Oi! Sky! Bit o' help here?" Cogs shouted to the Starclimber.

A huge hole promptly opened up in the sky, dropping all manner of objects. The 2016 Ecto-1 fell almost on top of the shield, instead blasting it with six peoples' worth of anti-ghost weaponry to soften the landing. Needless to say, the shield didn't hold up past that.

"Thanks!" Cogs shouted, once more to the Starclimber, to the confusion of the Ghostbusters, Protonix Ghostbuster, and DEARS member in the Ecto-1.

Diving into the square divet, Cogs grabbed the Dragonheart Crystal from a small pile in the corner, bringing it up to Jack's cage. Throwing the crystal to the Dragonheart, he smiled as Jack heaved, colour starting to return to his face and panting, getting shakily to his feet.

"... Torrent?" Jack said, smiling as he saw the two other Jacks standing at his rescue. As Torrent worked the lock, Cogs drew his guns as he watched Vortech fall to the ground, starting to battle against the Doctor, the Happy Mask Salesman and Batman, Gandalf and Wyldstyle.

"Dammit..." Torrent said, fiddling with the screwdriver's settings, "... I can't get it open." Giving up entirely, he wailed on the lock with the iron endcap, bashing it until it was open (plus a few more times for good measure).

On the bright side, Jack was free. However, the Screwdriver was destroyed.

"Oh come on," Torrent lamented. "I thought the Screwdriver would last longer."

Upon return to the Starclimber and takeoff, the Jacks noted Marinza's new gadget and Sky's disappearance.

"... So, Sky wrote himself out," Marinza said, "and told me to give this to you, Jack. - Er, Torrent. Still not used to the nickname..."

"No prob," said Torrent, accepting the gadget. Upon examination, he announced what he'd been hoping. "This is a new Screwdriver!"

"So, more sonic weaponry?" Jack asked.

"No... Jeez, you were away for so long... If my guess is correct, and that gem on the top is a laser..." Torrent pushed the button, and a medium-strong blue laser was emitted by the Laser Screwdriver, making a soft whirring sound, which was much less buzzy than your street-standard Sonic Screwdriver noise. "... Nice."

The Jacks then abandoned the battlefield as the Doctor did the same, returning the their home Rifts after dropping Marinza off in Torrent's home world.

"So..." Cogs said, "This madness of an odyssey is over."

"So then this is goodbye," Jack said.

"Well, it's not _goodbye_ -goodbye," Torrent said. "As long as I've got the Starclimber, there's a chance of a chance that we can see each other again."

"True, true."

"The next world is the Steampunk Dragonheart's," Torrent said, nodding to Cogs. Opening the back hatch, Cogs dove out of the Starclimber, gliding into his realm.

Jack and Torrent were silent for a minute as the Starclimber navigated to Jack's world.

"How long has it been since it was just us against whatever the Universe could throw at us?" Torrent said.

"Too long. God, that imprisonment hurt... Maybe we'll try to go against just what _our_ realms put up against us," Jack said.

"Agreed."

A bell sounded, indicating Jack's world below. "Well, this is your stop," Torrent said, opening the back hatch again.

"Well... It's been fun," Jack said.

"'Bye, Jack."

"'Bye, Jack." Jack then walked up to the hatch, looking below. Manifesting his wings and looking back to Torrent one last time, he smiled. "Make sure to come and visit," he said, jumping out into the rift, and smiling when he saw his garage appear beneath him.

He'd been looking forward to being home.

* * *

Oio boios! DetectiveSky612 here!

As long as it took to do this monster of an undertaking, Dimension Travellers is finally finished! As much as those Jacks got on my nerves during my stint of repairing the Fourth Wall, I'm going to miss them. Well, be sure to leave a like, subscribe, and read some of my other stories!


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